This, of course, did not escape the satirical observation of the neighbors, who commented upon the circumstance with that good humor which renders their mother-wit so pleasant and spicy.  The scenes where many of these displays took place, varied according to the occurrence of those usual incidents which diversify country life.  Sometimes old Denis’s hearth was selected; at others, a neighboring wakehouse, and not unfrequently the chapel-green, where, surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners, the young priest and his Latin would succeed in throwing the hedge-schoolmaster and his problems completely into the shade.

The father’s pride, on these occasions, always prompted him to become the aggressor; but he only did this to draw out the talents of his son to more advantage.  Never was man foiled with less regret than old Denis; nor did ever man more bitterly repent those little touches of vanity, which, sometimes induced him, when an opportunity of prostrating Denny arrived, to show what he could have done, by giving the son’s argument an unexpected brainblow.  These accidental defeats always brought the son! more than he lost by them; for the father usually made him a peace-offering in the shape of pocket-money, books, or clothes.  The great amusement of the peasantry around the chapel-green of a Sunday, was to hear the father and son engaged in argument; and so simple was the character of both, that their acquaintances declared, they could know by the state of young Denis’s coat, and the swaggering grasp with which old Denis held his staff, that an encounter was about to take place.

“Young O’Shaughnessy’s gettin’ bare,” they would observe; “there’ll be hard arguin’ till he gets the clothes.  He’s puttin’ in for a black coat now, he’s so grave.  Go on, Denny,” they would say again:  “more power an’ a dacenter sleeve to your elbow.  Stick to him!—­very good!—­that’s a clincher!—­you’re gone beyond the skirts, Denny!—­let him pocket that larnin’.  Dinis, you’re bate, body and slaves! (* altogether; completely)—­you’re no match for the gorsoon, Dinis.  Good agin, abouchal!—­that’s puttin’ the collar on it!”—­And so on, varying the phrase according to the whim of the moment.

Nothing gave the father greater pleasure than these observations, although the affected earnestness with which he encountered the son, and his pretended indignation at those who affirmed him to have been beaten, were highly amusing to the bystanders.

Such discussions were considered highly edifying and instructive by them, and they were sometimes at a loss whether to give the palm of ingenuity and eloquence to the father or Denny.  The reader, however, must not suppose that the contemptuous expressions scattered over Denny’s rhetorical flourishes; when discussing these points with his father, implied want of reverence or affection—­far from it.  On the contrary, the father always liked him the better for them, inasmuch as they proved Denny’s vast superiority over himself.  They were, therefore, only the licenses and embellishments of discussion, tolerated and encouraged by him to whom they were applied.