"Here," said Emon to a gossoon, who stood looking at the dog, "be off like a hare to Biddy Muldoon's for a naggin of whiskey, and you may have the change for yourself, if you're back in less than no time; make her put it in a bottle, not a cup, that you may [{384}] run the whole way without spilling it."
The boy started off, not very unlike—either in pace or appearance—to the animal he was desired to resemble, for he had a cap made of one of their skins.
Emon-a-knock, although a very steady, temperate young man, was not altogether so much above his compeers in the district as not to know "where a dhrop was kept," which, to the uninitiated (English, of course), means a sheebeen house. Perhaps, to them, I am only explaining one thing by another which equally requires explanation.
During the interval of the boy's absence, Emon-a-knock was examining the wounds in poor Bully-dhu's neck and throat. The dog still lay gasping, and occasionally scrubbling with his fore-legs, and kicking with his hind, while Winny reiterated her belief that he was dying. Emon now contradicted her rather flatly. He knew she would excuse the rudeness from the hope which it held forth.
"There will be nothing on him to signify indeed, Winny, after a little," he said kindly, feeling that he had been harsh but a moment before; "see, he is not even torn; only cut in four places."
"In four places! O Emon, in four?"
"Yes; but they are only where the other dog's teeth entered, and came through; see, they are only holes; the dog is quite exhausted, but will soon come round. Come here, Winny, and feel him yourself."
Winny stretched over, and Emon took her hand to guide it to the spots where her poor dog had been wounded. Poor Bully looked up at her, and feebly endeavored to wag his tail, and Winny smiled and wept together. Emon was a very long time explaining to her precisely where the wounds were, and how they must have been inflicted; and he found it necessary to hold her hand the whole time. Whether Winny, in the confusion of her grief, knew that he did so, nobody but herself can tell. Three or four persons who knew Winny had kindly come up to see how the dog was, and the expert amongst them, with so much confidence that he was going to set him on his legs at once. But Emon had taken special charge of him, and would not suffer so premature an experiment, nor the interference of any other doctor.
But here comes the gossoon with the whiskey, like a hare indeed, across the fields, and his middle finger stuck in the neck of the bottle by way of a cork.
Emon took it from him, and claiming the assistance of the expert, whom he had just now repudiated, for a few moments to hold his head, he placed the neck of the bottle in Bully-dhu's mouth. He poured "the least taste in life" down his throat, and with his hand washed his jaws and tongue copiously with the spirits.