the. As the boy sank to the earth, a few laborers were
eating their scanty dinner of bread and milk so near him, that only
a dry low ditch ran between him and them. They had heard his words
indistinctly, and one of them was putting the milk bottle to his lips
when, attracted by the voice, he looked in the direction of the speaker,
and saw him fall. They immediately recognized "the poor scholar," and in
a moment were attempting to recover him.

"Why thin, my poor fellow, what's a shaughran wid you?"

Jemmy started for a moment, looked about him, and asked, "Where am I?"

"Faitha, thin, you're in Rory Connor's field, widin a few perches of the
high-road. But what ails you, poor boy? Is it sick you are?"

"It is," he replied; "I have got the faver. I had to lave school;
none o' them would take me home, an' I doubt I must die in a Christian
counthry under the open canopy of heaven. Oh, for God's sake, don't lave
me! Bring me to some hospital, or into the next town, where people may
know that I'm sick, an' maybe some kind Christian will relieve me."

The moment he mentioned "faver," the men involuntarily drew back, after
having laid him reclining against the green ditch.

"Thin, thundher an' turf, what's to be done?" exclaimed one of them,
thrusting his spread fingers into his hair. "Is the poor boy to die
widout help among Christyeens like us?"

"But hasn't he the sickness?" exclaimed another: "an' in that case,
Pether, what's to be done?"

"Why, you gommoch, isn't that what I'm wantin' to know? You wor ever and
always an ass, Paddy, except before you wor born, an' thin you wor like
Major M'Curragh, worse nor nothin'. Why the sarra do you be spakin'
about the sickness, the Lord protect us, whin you know I'm so timersome
of it?"

"But considher," said another, edging off from Jemmy, however, "that
he's a poor scholar, an' that there's a great blessin' to thim that
assists the likes of him."

"Ay, is there that, sure enough, Dan; but you see--blur-an-age, what's
to be done? He can't die this way, wid nobody wid him but himself."

"Let us help him!" exclaimed another, "for God's sake, an' we won't be
apt to take it thin."

"Ay, but how can we help him, Frank? Oh, bedad, it 'ud be a murdherin'
shame, all out, to let the crathur die by himself, widout company, so it
would."

"No one wul take him in, for fraid o' the sickness. Why, I'll tell
you what we'll do:--Let us shkame the remainder o' this day off o' the
Ma