HISTORY OF THE MACOUN FAMILY 7 



called Saint Roan's Well, and there she undressed us and placed 

 each one of us under the spout out of which the water issued. 

 This was intended to strengthen our religious and physical nature 

 — she was a good Roman Catholic. 



My school days were like those of nearly all boys; the great- 

 est impression of them that remains is the fights that we had with 

 our fellows, and there are other pleasant memories, such as book- 

 makers tell of when they went to school. A boy that could not 

 defend himself had a very poor chance of having pleasant times. 

 Our school was the parochial school of the church and, therefore, 

 we were taught by the cleric of the Established Church of Ireland. 

 No Roman Catholics attended it and we thought it our duty to 

 fight the members of their school every day, as we always made a 

 point of seeing them as they went home. From what I can re- 

 member now I seemed to have been a terror, because I was left- 

 handed and used my left hand while I was expected to use my 

 right and looking back on it now I always seem to have come out 

 the victor. I fought others as well and never seem to have ever 

 considered myself at fault. I remember that on one occasion I 

 came home with a black eye and a bloody nose and my mother 

 upbraided me and I told her that a certain boy had attacked me 

 and caused all the trouble. I was telling this to my mother just 

 when we entered our house and as I had proceeded thus far the 

 other boy's mother, who was behind me, said: "Mrs. Macoun, 

 look at my son and see which of them has got the worst of it." 

 Both my mother and I turned around and the boy, besides being 

 far worse off than I, had his clothes almost torn off. Of course I was 

 caught in a falsehood and had to own up that I was the aggressor 

 but said that I fought him because he would not do what I wished. 



Our school was in an old orchard which had been the Abbey 

 garden of years before, and our chief occupation in the late sum- 

 mer was sneaking into the orchard and getting the fruit off the 

 ground. I did my work in the early morning and got to the or- 

 chard before the other boys and generally had the largest share. 

 A small river ran close to the school and our occupation part of 

 the time was catching small fish, called sticklebacks. We used a 

 string and a small stick and a bent pin to which a fish-worm was 



