' But suppose that you have not the money about you at the
time, wouldn't you feel sorry to the back-bone? Ay, would yez--to the
very core of the heart itself. Or if any man--an' he'd be' nothing else
than a bodagh that would say it--if any man would tell me that you would
not, I'd--yes--I'd give him his answer, as good as I gave to ould Cokely
long ago, and you all know what that was.
"The next point is, what would you do if you hadn't it about you?
It's that can tell you what you'd do:--you'd say, 'I haven't got it,
brother,'--for ev'ry created bein' of the human kind is your brother,
barrin' the women, an' they are your sisters--[this produced a grin upon
many faces]--'but,' says you, 'if you wait a bit for a day or two, or a
week, or maybe for a fortnight, I'll try what I can do to help you.'
"Picture to yourselves a fellow-creature in distress--suppose him
to have neither hat, shoe, nor stocking--[this was a touch of the
pathetic]--and altogether in a state of utter destitution! Can there be
a more melancholy picture than this? No, there can't. But 'tisn't
the tithe of it!--a barefaced robbery is the same tithe--think of him
without father, mother, or friend upon the earth--both dead, and ne'er
another to be had for love or money--maybe he has poor health--maybe
he's sick, an' in a sthrange country--[here Jemmy's mother and friends
sobbed aloud, and the contagion began to spread]--the priest, in fact,
knew where to touch--his face is pale--his eyes sunk with sickness and
sorrow in his head--his bones are cuttin' the skin--he knows not where
to turn himself--hunger and sickness are strivin' for him.
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