Mortification works out sometimes in jest that way. It gaulded him to be took for a Banshee, for I hearn him mutter the word two or three times scornfully, as he wuz a-ondressin’.
Sez he, “A Banshee!!! Dum fools!!! I’d love to be one a spell—I’d show ’em some screechin’!”
He didn’t mean me to overhear him, but I did, and I sez calmly from my piller—
“You needn’t blame yourself, Josiah Allen; there hain’t a Banshee in Ireland but what would be proud to mate with you after hearin’ you to-night—there hain’t one on ’em that could outdo you.”
“Keep on your aggravatin’,” sez he, and he didn’t say another word for as much as three minutes, when he begun to complain of bein’ chilly.
And I took alarm to once, and made him some hot lemonade—I had the ingregiences, and a alcohol lamp with me.
And I folded up my woollen shawl, and tucked him all up in it, and spoke real soothin’ to him, and affectionate. For sech is the mystery of human love, though pardners may mortify you, or anger you, yet their sufferin’ or danger shows how strong are the ties that bind two lovin’ hearts—nothin’ can break it. He answered me back in the same affectionate way, though terse, but showin’ the tender regard he had for my welfare. Sez he—
“For mercy sake, do come to bed! your feet will be as cold as ice suckles.”
And so sweet peace havin’ descended down onto us, we wuz both soon wropped in slumber.
Wall, Martin concluded that we would go as soon as we could to Glasgow, “For,” sez he, “I feel that we have seen everything that there is to see in Ireland, and gone to the bottom, as you may say, of the ‘Irish Question.’ So we might just as well go to Scotland as soon as might be.”