The strangers looked at each other, then at him; and if looks could express sympathy, theirs expressed it.
"My good boy," said the first, "how is it that we find you in a situation so deplorable and wretched as this? Who are you, or why is it that you have not a friendly roof I to shelter you?"
"I"m a poor scholar," replied Jemmy, "the son of honest but reduced parents: I came to this part of the country with the intention of preparing myself for Maynooth and, if it might plase G.o.d, with the hope of being able to raise them out of their distress."
The strangers looked more earnestly at the boy; sickness had touched his fine intellectual features into a purity of expression almost ethereal.
His fair skin appeared nearly transparent, and the light of truth and candor lit up his countenance with a l.u.s.tre which affliction could not dim.
The other stranger approached him more nearly, stooped for a moment, and felt his pulse.
"How long have you been in this country?" he inquired.
"Nearly three years."
"You have been ill of the fever which is so prevalent; how did you come to be left to the chance of perishing upon the highway?"
"Why, sir, the people were afeard to let me into their houses in consequence of the faver. I got ill in school, sir, but no boy would venture to bring me home, an" the master turned me out, to die, I believe. May G.o.d forgive him!"
"Who was your master, my child?"
"The great" Mr.------, sir. If Mr. O"Brien, the curate of the parish, hadn"t been ill himself at the same time, or if Mr. O"Rorke"s son, Thady, hadn"t been laid on his back, too, sir, I wouldn"t suffer what I did."
"Has the curate been kind to you?"
"Sir, only for him and the big boys I couldn"t stay in the school, on account of the master"s cruelty, particularly since my money was out."
"You are better now--are you not?" said the other gentleman.
"Thank G.o.d, sir!--oh, thanks be to the Almighty, I am! I expect to be able to lave this place to-day or to-morrow."
"And where do you intend to go when you recover?"
The boy himself had not thought of this, and the question came on him so unexpectedly, that he could only reply--
"Indeed, sir, I don"t know."
"Had you," inquired the second stranger, "testimonials from your parish priest?"
"I had, sir: they are in the hands of Mr. O"Brien. I also had a character from my father"s landlord."
"But how," asked the other, "have you existed here during your illness?
Have you been long sick?"
"Indeed I can"t tell you, sir, for I don"t know how the time pa.s.sed at all; but I know, sir, that there were always two or three people attendin" me. They sent me whatever they thought I wanted, upon a shovel or a pitchfork, across the ditch, because they were afraid to come near me."
During the early part of the dialogue, two or three old hats, or caubeens, might have been seen moving steadily over from the wigwam to the ditch which ran beside the shed occupied by M"Evoy. Here they remained stationary, for those who wore them were now within hearing of the conversation, and ready to give their convalescent patient a good word, should it be necessary.
"How were you supplied with drink and medicine?" asked the younger stranger.
"As I"ve just told you, sir," replied Jemmy; "the neighbors here let me want for nothing that they had. They kept me in more whey than I could use; and they got me medicine, too, some way or other. But indeed, sir, during a great part of the time I was ill, I can"t say how they attended me: I wasn"t insinsible, sir, of what was goin" on about me."
One of those who lay behind the ditch now arose, and after a few hems and scratchings of the head, ventured to join in the conversation.
"Pray have you, my man," said the elder of the two, "been acquainted with the circ.u.mstances 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" G.o.d, 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 G.o.d!"
"Many of the fanners" cows have been milked at night, Connor--perfectly drained. Even my own cows have not escaped; and we who have suffered are certainly determined, if possible, to ascertain those who have committed the theft. I, for my part, have gone even beyond my ability in relieving the wants of the poor, during this period of sickness and famine; I therefore deserved this the less."
"By the powdbers, your honor, if any gintleman desarved to have his cows _unmilked_, it"s yourself. But, as I said this minute, there"s no end to the wickedness o" the people, so there"s not, although the Catechiz is against them; for, says it, "there is but one Faith, one Church, an" one Baptism." Now, sir, isn"t it quare that people, wid sich words in the book afore them, won"t be guided by it? I suppose they thought it only a _white_ sin, sir, to take the milk, the thieves o" the world."
"Maybe, your honor," said another, "that it was only to keep the life in some poor sick crathur that wanted it more nor you or the farmers, that they did it. There"s some o" the same farmers desarve worse, for they"re keepin" up the prices o" their male and praties upon the poor, an" did so all along, that they might make money by our outlier dest.i.tution."
"That is no justification for theft," observed the graver of the two.
"Does any one among you suspect those who committed it in this instance?
If you do, I command you, as your Bishop, to mention them."
"How, for instance," added the other, "were you able to supply this sick boy with whey during his illness?"
"Oh thin, gintlemen," replied Connor, dexterously parrying the question, "but it"s a mighty improvin" thing to see our own Bishop,--G.o.d spare his Lordship to us!--an the Protestant minister o" the parish joinin"
together to relieve an" give good advice to the poor! Bedad, it"s settin" a fine example, so it is, to the Quality, if they"d take patthern by it."
"Reply," said the Bishop, rather sternly, "to the questions we have asked you."
"The quistions, your Lordship? It"s proud an" happy we"d be to do what you want; but the sarra man among us can do it, barin" we"d say what we ought not to say. That"s the thruth, my Lord; an" surely "tisn"t your Gracious Reverence that "ud want us to go beyant that?"
"Certainly not," replied the Bishop. "I warn you both against falsehood and fraud; two charges which might frequently be brought against you in your intercourse with the gentry of the country, whom you seldom scruple to deceive and mislead, by gliding into a character, when speaking to them, that is often the reverse of your real one; whilst at the same time you are both honest and sincere to persons of your own cla.s.s. Put away this practice, for it is both sinful and discreditable."
"G.o.d bless your Lordship! an" many thanks to your Gracious Reverence for advisin" us! Well we know that it"s the blessed thing to folly your words."
"Bring over that naked, starved-looking man, who is stirring the fire under that pot," said the Hector. "He looks like Famine itself."
"Paddy Dunn! will you come over here to his honor, Paddy! He"s goin"
to give you somethin," said Connor, adding of his own accord the last clause of his message.