"Pray have you, my man," said the elder of the two, "been acquainted
with the circumstances of this boy's illness?"
"Is it the poor scholar, my Lord?* Oh thin bedad it's myself that has
that. The poor crathur was in a terrible way all out, so he was. He
caught the faver in the school beyant, one day, an' was turned out by
the nager o' the world that he was larnin' from."
* The peasantry always address a Roman Catholic Bishop
as "My Lord."
"Are you one of the persons who attended him?"
"Och, och, the crathar! what could unsignified people like us do for
him, barrin' a thrifle? Any how, my Lord, it's the meracle o' the world
that he was ever able to over it at all. Why, sir, good luck to the one
of him but suffered as much, wid the help o' God, as 'ud overcome fifty
men!"
"How did you provide him with drink at such a distance from any human
habitation?"
"Throth, hard enough we found it, sir, to do that same: but sure,
whether or not, my Lord, we couldn't be sich nagers as to let him die
all out, for want o' sometlrm' to moisten his throath wid."
"I hope," inquired the other, "you had nothing to do in the
milk-stealing which has produced such an outcry in this immediate
neighborhood?"
"Milk-stalin'! Oh, bedad, sir, there never was the likes known afore
in the caunthry. The Lord forgive them, that did it! Be gorra, sir, the
wickedness o' the people': mighty improving if one 'ud take warnin' by
it, glory be to God!"
"Many of the fanners' cows have been milked at night, Connor--perfectly
drained.
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