"Why, bad luck to ye," exclaimed our hero with the greatcoat, in answer to one who had held forth in praise of the counsellor; "and it is you, Mick Behan, that says every man in Ireland should pay the O'Connell rint?—but I'll tell you a bit of a parable, as Father O'Shee says, and a parable, too, of my own natural mother's making. 'Larry,' says she to me—'Larry M'Carthy, don't be after planting those big potaties for seed; for they've a hole in their heart a little Christian might slape in?"
"You're no better thin a Sassenach, Larry," interrupted the aforesaid Mick; "can't you spake your maneing like a man, if you have any maneing at all, at all."
This was like to have ended in an Irish row in reality; though the majority evidently sided with Mister Larry M'Carthy, not because they agreed with him in opinion, but because, as afterwards appeared, he was their master or employer. The disputants paused for a moment, and a loud groan, as if from one in great bodily pain, mingled with the wailings of a woman, was heard from the farther corner of the boat. Larry turned round, to use his own expression, "like a flash of lightning," and the next moment he stood by the side of the sufferer, who was a tall, bony-looking figure; but, save the skin that covered them, there was little of his mortal man but the bones left. It was only necessary to look on his features, wasted as they were, to tell that he, too, was an Irishman. A young wife sat beside him, whose countenance resembled beauty personifying sorrow; she had a child at her breast, and two others, the eldest not more than five years of age, stood by her knee Larry looked upon the group, and his heart was touched.
"Och! and what may be ailing ye, countryman?" said he; "sure and ye wouldn't be after dying among friends would ye?"
"Ohon! and is it a friend that would be asking after my own Patrick!" replied the poor wife. "Sure, then, and he is ill, and we're all ill togidder; and it is six blessed months since he earned the bridth of tinpinny. Oh, blackness on the day that the rheumatiz came on him——"
"Shure now, and is that all?" interrupted Larry; "and, belike, the doctors have been chating you; for I tell you, honey, and you, too, Patrick, those 'natomy chaps know no more about the rheumatiz than holy Solomon knew about stameboats. But, belike, I'm the lad that disn't know neither; but maybe your chating yoursilf if ye think so. I'll tell ye what it is: the rheumatiz is a wandering wind between the flesh and the bone; and, more than that, there is no way to cure it but to squaze it out at the ends of the fingers or toes."
"Oh, my childer's sorrow on it, thin!" replied the suffering man's wife; "but, more and above the rheumatiz, Patrick got his leg broke last Fibruary——"
"Ay, splintered, honey," added the husband; "and the doctors—bad luck be wid them!—can't make nothing on't; and I am now goin to the great Salford bone-doctor."
"And maybe he won't be curing the bit bone without the money?" said Larry, with an expression of sympathy.
The sufferer shook his head, and was silent; his wife burst into tears.