which they receive kindly and hospitably from the parents of the scholars.  The masters are generally paid their full terms by these pitiable beings, but this rule, like all others, of course, has its exceptions.  At all events, my outfit was got ready, and on a beautiful morning in the month of May I separated from my family to go in quest of education.  There was no collection, however, in my case, as mentioned in the tale; as my own family supplied the funds supposed to be necessary.  I have been present, however, at more than one collection made for similar purposes, and heard a good-natured sermon not very much differing from that given in the story.

The priest’s nephew, on the day we were to start, suddenly changed his mind, and I consequently had to undertake the journey alone, which I did with a heavy heart.  The farther I got from home, the more my spirits sank, or in the beautiful image of Goldsmith,

     “I dragged at each remove a lengthening chain.”

I travelled as far as the town of Granard, and during the journey, it is scarcely necessary to say, that the almost parental tenderness and hospitality which I received on my way could not be adequately described.  The reader will find an attempt at it in the story.  The parting from home and my adventures on the road are real.

Having reached Granard my courage began to fail, and my family at home, now that I had departed from them, began also to feel something like remorse for having permitted one so young and inexperienced as I then was, to go abroad alone upon the world.  My mother’s sorrow, especially, was deep, and her cry was, “Oh, why did I let my boy go? maybe I will never see him again!”

At this time, as the reader may be aware from my parental education, there was not a being alive more thoroughly imbued with superstition; and, whether for good or ill, at all events that superstition returned me to my family.  On reaching Granard, I felt, of course, fatigued, and soon went to bed, where I slept soundly.  It was not, however, a dreamless sleep:  I thought I was going along a strange path to some particular place, and that a mad bull met me on the road, and pursued me with such speed and fury that I awoke in a state of singular terror.  That was sufficient; my mind had been already wavering, and the dream determined me.  The next morning after breakfast I bent my steps homewards, and, as it happened, my return took a weighty load of bitter grief from the heart of my mother and family.  The house I stopped at in Granard was a kind of small inn, kept by a man whose name was Peter Grehan.  Such were the incidents which gave rise to the tale of “The Poor Scholar.”