“And now,” said she, “I must give you a cure for blisthers, an' it's this:—In the mornin', if we're all spared, as we will, plase the Almighty, I'll give you a needle and some white woollen thread, well soaped. When your blisthers gets up, dhraw the soapy thread through them, clip it on each side, an', my life for yours, they won't throuble you. Sure I thried it the year I went on my Station to Lough Derg, an' I know it to be the rale cure.”
“Here, Nelly,” said the farmer,—who sat iwith a placid benevolent face, smoking his pipe on the opposite hob—to one of the maids who came in from milking,—“bring up a noggin of that milk, we want it here: let it be none of your washy foremilk, but the strippins, Nelly, that has the strinth in it. Up wid it here, a colleen.”
“The never a one o' the man but's doatin' downright, so he is,” observed the wife, “to go to fill the tired child's stomach wid plash. Can't you wait till he ates a thrifle o' some-thin' stout, to keep life in him, afther his hard journey? Does your feet feel themselves cool an' asy now, ahagur?”
“Indeed,” said Jemmy, “I'm almost as fresh as when I set out. 'Twas little thought I had, when I came away this mornin', that I'd meet wid so much friendship on my journey. I hope it's a sign that God's on my side in my undertakin'!”
“I hope so, avourneen—I hope so, an' it is, too,” replied the farmer, taking the pipe out of his mouth, and mildly whiffing away the smoke, “an' God'll be always on your side, as long as your intentions are good. Now ate somethin'—you must want it by this; an' thin, when you rest yourself bravely, take a tass into a good feather-bed, where you can sleep rings round you. (* As much as you please.) Who knows but you'll be able to say mass for me or some o' my family yit. God grant that, any way, avick!”
Poor James's heart was too full to eat much; he took, therefore, only a very slender portion of the refreshments set before him; but his hospitable entertainer had no notion of permitting him to use the free exercise of his discretion on this important point. When James put away the knife and fork, as an indication of his having concluded the meal, the farmer and his wife turned about, both at the same moment, with a kind of astonishment.
“Eh? is it giving over that way you are? Why, alanna, it's nothin' at all you've tuck; sure little Brian there would make a fool of you, so he would, at the atin'. Come, come, a bouchal—don't be ashamed, or make any way sthrange at all, but ate hearty.”
“I declare I have ate heartily, thank you,” replied James; “oceans itself, so I did. I couldn't swally a bit more if the house was full.”
“Arrah, Brian,” said the wife, “cut him up more o' that hung beef, it's ashamed the crathur is! Take it, avick; don't we know the journey you had! Faix, if one o' the boys was out on a day's thravellin', you'd see how he'd handle himself.”
“Indeed,” said James, “I can't—if I could I would. Sure I would be no way backward at all, so I wouldn't.”