He could only
raise his eyes in a silent prayer, that none belonging to him might ever
be compelled, as strangers and way-farers, to commit themselves, as he
did, to the casualties of life, in pursuit of those attainments which
poverty cannot otherwise command. Fervent, indeed, was his prayer; and
certain we are, that because it was sincere, it must have been heard.
In the meantime, the good woman, or _vanithee_, had got the pot of water
warmed, in which Jemmy was made to put his feet. She then stripped up
her arms to the elbows, and, with soap and seedy meal, affectionately
bathed his legs and feet: then, taking the _praskeen_, or coarse towel,
she wiped them with a kindness which thrilled to his heart.
"And now," said she, "I must give you a cure for blisthers, an' it's
this:--In the mornin', if we're all spared, as we will, plase the
Almighty, I'll give you a needle and some white woollen thread, well
soaped. When your blisthers gets up, dhraw the soapy thread through
them, clip it on each side, an', my life for yours, they won't throuble
you. Sure I thried it the year I went on my Station to Lough Derg, an' I
know it to be the rale cure."
"Here, Nelly," said the farmer,--who sat iwith a placid benevolent face,
smoking his pipe on the opposite hob--to one of the maids who came in
from milking,--"bring up a noggin of that milk, we want it here: let it
be none of your washy _foremilk_, but the _strippins_, Nelly, that has
the strinth in it.
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