The worthy pastor’s eyes glistened with a moisture that did him honor.  Without a word of observation, he slipped a crown into the hand of Dunn, who looked at it as if he had been paralyzed.

“Oh thin,” said he, fervently, “may every hair on your honor’s head become a mould-candle to light you into glory!  The world’s goodness is in your heart, sir; an’ may all the blessin’s of Heaven rain down upon you an’ yours!”

The two gentlemen then gave assistance to the poor scholar, whom the Bishop addressed in kind and encouraging language: 

“Come to me, my good boy,” he added, “and if, on further inquiry, I find that your conduct has been such as I believe it to have been, you may rest assured, provided also you continue worthy of my good opinion, that I shall be a friend and protector to you.  Call on me when you got well, and I will speak to you at greater length.”

“Well,” observed Connor, when they were gone, “the divil’s own hard puzzle the Bishop had me in, about stalin’ the milk.  It went agin’ the grain wid me to tell him the lie, so I had to invint a bit o’ truth to keep my conscience clear; for sure there was not a man among us that could tell him, barrin’ we said that we oughtn’t to say.  Doesn’t all the world know that a man oughtn’t to condimn himself?  That was thruth, any way; but divil a scruple I’d have in blammin’ the other—­not but that he’s one o’ the best of his sort.  Paddy Dunn, quit lookin’ at that crown, but get the shovel an’ give the boy his dhrink—­he’s wantin’ it.”

The agitation of spirits produced by Jemmy’s cheering interview with the Bishop was, for three days afterwards, somewhat prejudicial to his convalescence.  In less than a week, however, he was comfortably settled with Mr. O’Rorke’s family, whose kindness proved to him quite as warm as he had expected.

When he had remained with them a few days, he resolved to recommence his studies under his tyrant master.  He certainly knew that his future attendance at the school would be penal to him, but he had always looked forward to the accomplishment of his hopes as a task of difficulty and distress.  The severity to be expected from the master could not, he thought, be greater than that which he had already suffered; he therefore decided, if possible, to complete his education under him.

The school, when Jemmy appeared in it, had been for more than an hour assembled, but the thinness of the attendance not only proved the woful prevalence of sickness and distress in the parish, but sharpened the pedagogue’s vinegar aspect into an expression of countenance singularly peevish and gloomy.  When the lad entered, a murmur of pleasure and welcome ran through the scholars, and joy beamed forth from every countenance but that of his teacher.  When the latter noticed this, his irritability rose above restraint, and he exclaimed:—­

“Silence! and apply to business, or I shall cause some of you to denude immediately.  No school ever can prosper in which that hirudo, called a poor scholar, is permitted toleration.  I thought, sarra, I told you to nidificate and hatch your wild project undher some other wing than mine.”