The cream of the matter is this:—­a species of ambition prevails in the Green Isle, not known in any other country.  It is an ambition of about three miles by four in extent; or, in other words, is bounded by the limits of the parish in which the subject of it may reside.  It puts itself forth early in the character, and a hardy perennial it is.  In my own case, its first development was noticed in the hedge-school which I attended.  I had not been long there, till I was forced to declare myself either for the Caseys or the Murphys, two tiny factions, that had split the school between them.  The day on which the ceremony of my declaration took place was a solemn one.  After school, we all went to the bottom of a deep valley, a short distance from the school-house; up to the moment of our assembling there, I had not taken my stand under either banner:  that of the Caseys was a sod of turf, stuck on the end of a broken fishing-rod—­the eagle of the Murphy’s was a Cork red potato, hoisted in the same manner.  The turf was borne by an urchin, who afterwards distinguished himself in fairs and markets as a builla batthah (* cudgel player) of the first grade, and from this circumstance he was nicknamed Parrah Rackhan. (* Paddy the Rioter) The potato was borne by little Mickle M’Phauden Murphy, who afterwards took away Katty Bane Sheridan, without asking either her own consent or her father’s.  They were all then boys, it is true, but they gave a tolerable promise of that eminence which they subsequently attained.

When we arrived at the bottom of the glen, the Murphys and the Caseys, including their respective followers, ranged themselves on either side of a long line, which was drawn between the belligerent powers with the but-end of one of the standards.  Exactly on this line was I placed.  The word was then put to me in full form—­“Whether will you side with the dacent Caseys, or the blackguard Murphys?” “Whether will you side with the dacent Murphys, or the blackguard Caseys?” “The potato for ever!” said I, throwing up my caubeen, and running over to the Murphy standard.  In the twinkling of an eye we were at it; and in a short time the deuce an eye some of us had to twinkle.  A battle royal succeeded, that lasted near half an hour, and it would probably have lasted above double the time, were it not for the appearance of the “master,” who was seen by a little shrivelled vidette, who wanted an arm, and could take no part in the engagement.  This was enough—­we instantly radiated in all possible directions, so that by the time he had descended through the intricacies of the glen to the field of battle, neither victor nor vanquished was visible, except, perhaps, a straggler or two as they topped the brow of the declivity, looking back over their shoulders, to put themselves out of doubt as to their visibility by the master.  They seldom looked in vain, however, for there he usually stood, shaking at us his rod, silently prophetic of its application on the following day.  This threat, for the most part, ended in smoke; for except he horsed about forty or fifty of us, the infliction of impartial justice was utterly out of his power.