12 LIFE IN IRELAND 



Brian Boru might be accounted a handsome man 

 in more civilized places than the wilds of Connaught, 

 although he had not 



'&• 



' Brawny shoulders four feet square, 



Nor cheeks like thumping red potatoes, 

 Nor legs to make a chairman stare — 

 Yet he was lov'd by all the ladies.' 



Nearly six feet high, of an athletic form, and remark- 

 ably well made, he was active, vigorous, and strong. 

 His education had not been neglected. When a child, 

 he was placed under the tuition of a ' poor scholar ' ; 

 that is, a chap who, with a smattering of Latin and 

 Greek, begs through the country, until he begs admit- 

 tance into some respectable family, where he teaches 

 \)i\Q gossoons to disobey their parents, assists the servant 

 girls in peopling the kitchen, creates a quarrel betwixt 

 the master and mistress, and for his pains after a time 

 is rewarded with a hearth-money collector's place, or (if 

 a drunken dog) that of an exciseman. 



Under a being of this description young Boru ran 

 through the classics with some ^<:/^/ amongst his father's 

 friends, and at the age of thirteen was sent to a 

 boarding-school not far from Limerick. 



The evening previous to his bidding adieu to Boru 

 Castle, he gave an entertainment in his pleasure-boat 

 on the River Shannon. Even then, obstinate as Brian 

 Rooney's pig, he scorned all advice, managed to upset 

 his cargo in the Tidesway, and sent the ' poor scholar ' 

 with two gallons of whiskey punch in his belly, and a 

 ton weight of sin upon his head, to receive the reward 

 of his labours in another world. 



