"Why thin, my poor fellow, what's a shaughran wid you?"
Jemmy started for a moment, looked about him, and asked, "Where am I?"
"Faitha, thin, you're in Rory Connor's field, widin a few perches of the
high-road. But what ails you, poor boy? Is it sick you are?"
"It is," he replied; "I have got the faver. I had to lave school;
none o' them would take me home, an' I doubt I must die in a Christian
counthry under the open canopy of heaven. Oh, for God's sake, don't lave
me! Bring me to some hospital, or into the next town, where people may
know that I'm sick, an' maybe some kind Christian will relieve me."
The moment he mentioned "faver," the men involuntarily drew back, after
having laid him reclining against the green ditch.
"Thin, thundher an' turf, what's to be done?" exclaimed one of them,
thrusting his spread fingers into his hair. "Is the poor boy to die
widout help among Christyeens like us?"
"But hasn't he the sickness?" exclaimed another: "an' in that case,
Pether, what's to be done?"
"Why, you gommoch, isn't that what I'm wantin' to know? You wor ever and
always an ass, Paddy, except before you wor born, an' thin you wor like
Major M'Curragh, worse nor nothin'. Why the sarra do you be spakin'
about the sickness, the Lord protect us, whin you know I'm so timersome
of it?"
"But considher," said another, edging off from Jemmy, however, "that
he's a poor scholar, an' that there's a great blessin' to thim that
assists the likes of him.
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