Tall, and gaunt, and stately, was “Master Ben;” with a thin sprinkling of white, mingled with the slightly-curling brown hair, that shaded a forehead, high, and somewhat narrow. With all my partiality for this very respectable personage, I must confess that his physiognomy was neither handsome nor interesting; yet there was a calm and gentle expression in his pale grey eyes, that told of much kind-heartedness – even to the meanest of God's creatures. His steps were strides: his voice shrill, like a boatswain's whistle; and his learning – prodigious! – the unrivalled dominie of the country, for five miles round, was Master Ben.

Although the cabin of Master Ben was built of the blue shingle, so common along the eastern coast of Ireland, and was perched, like the nest of a pewet, on one of the highest crags in the neighbourhood of Bannow; although the aforesaid Master Ben, or (as he was called by the gentry) “Mister Benjamin,” had worn a long black coat for a period of fourteen years – in summer, as an open surtout, which flapped heavily in the gay sea breeze – and in winter, firmly secured, by a large wooden pin, round his throat – the dominie was a person of much consideration, and more loved than feared, even by the little urchins who often felt the effects of his “system of education.” Do not, therefore, for a moment, imagine that his was one of the paltry hedge-schools, where all the brats contribute their “sod o’ turf,” or, “their small trifle o’ pratees,” to the schoolmaster's fire or board. No such thing; – though I confess that “Mister Benjamin” would, occasionally, accept “a hand of pork,” a kreel, or even a kish of turf, or three or four hundred of “white eyes,” or “London ladies,”a if they were presented, in a proper manner, by the parents of his favourite pupils.