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Updated: June 4, 2025
In the three hours I was quite perfect, and Timothy Ruddel, who was called up before me, was also able to say his lesson without a blunder very much to the disappointment of Mr O'Gallagher, who observed, "So you've slipped through my fingers, have you, this time, Master Timothy? Never mind, I'll have you yet; and, moreover, there's Master Keene to go through the fiery furnace."
Ignorant as I was of the force of gunpowder, it was with astonishment, mingled with horror, that I beheld, in a second, the claret case rise up as if it had wings, and Mr O'Gallagher thrown up to the ceiling enveloped in a cloud of smoke, the crackers and squibs fizzing and banging, while the boys in the school uttered a yell of consternation and fear as they rushed from from the explosion, and afterwards, tumbling over one another, made their escape from the school-room.
About six months after I had blown up the school of Mr O'Gallagher, the company to which my father Ben belonged was ordered afloat again, and shortly afterwards sailed for the East Indies, in the Redoubtable, 74.
I felt a LITTLE squeamish at the thought of meeting a couple of hundred great people; but Count Mace and Sir Gorman O'Gallagher taking each an arm, we reached, at last, the drawing-room. The young ones in company were dancing, and the Duchess and the great ladies were all seated, talking to themselves very stately, and working away at the ices and macaroons.
Ben, who probably had a great respect for learning, in consequence of his having none himself, gave a military salute to Mr O'Gallagher, saying, with his hand still to his hat, "A new boy, sir, come to school." "Oh, by the powers! don't I know him?" cried Mr O'Gallagher; "it's the young gentleman who bit a hole in his grandmother; Master Keene, as they call him. Keen teeth, at all events.
The grave gentleman, who I afterwards found was known in the neighbourhood by the title of her ladyship's "moral agent," replied, "What, madam, would you have of an O'Gallagher a family of the blackest Papists in the county?" My lady shook her head, and threw up her devout eyes.
"Where's your manners, you animal? No `If you plase. For the future, you must not forget to say, `No, sir, or, `No, Mr O'Gallagher. D'ye mind me now say yes what?" "Yes, what!" "Yes, what! you little ignoramus; say `yes, Mr O'Gallagher, and recollect, as the parish clerk says, `this is the last time of asking." "Yes, Mr O'Gallagher."
Thus taken in the fact, I was, without ceremony, denounced as an emissary from Clongowes, brought to Sourcraut Hall by the Papist O'Gallagher, with a forged letter, to disturb the community. I was immediately cross-examined by a religious attorney, as if I had been a white-boy or a ribbon-man.
The hour of play was now over, and a bell summoned us all to school; I went in with the others and took my seat where Mr O'Gallagher had before desired me. As soon as all was silent, my pedagogue beckoned me to him. "Now, Mr Keene," said he, "you'll be so good as to lend me your ears that is, to listen while I talk to you a little bit. D'ye know how many roads there are to larning?
It was in May that I administered the dose to Mr O'Gallagher; in September he was quite well again, and the ruler, the ferrule, and the rod, were triumphantly at work. It is useless to say how often I was punished, for it was every day; always once, sometimes twice; I became completely callous to it, nay, laughed at it, but my mind was ever at work upon some mischief, in the way of retaliation.
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