Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry | Page 9

calculated to save her
darling from the small-pox was done, felt considerably relieved, and
hoped that whoever might be infected, Phelim would escape. On the
morning when the last journey to the river had been completed, she
despatched him home with the halters. Phelim, however, wended his
way to a little hazel copse, below the house, where he deliberately
twined the halters together, and erected a swing-swang, with which he
amused himself till hunger brought him to his dinner.
"Phelim, you idle thief, what kep you away till now?"
"Oh; mudher, mudher, gi' me a piece o' arran? (* bread.)
"Why, here's the praties done for your dinner. What kep you?"
"Oh, be gorra, it's well you ever seen me at all, so it is!"
"Why," said his father, "what happened you?"

"Oh, bedad, a terrible thing all out. As I was crassin' Dunroe Hill, I
thramped on hungry grass. First, I didn't know what kem over me, I got
so wake; an' every step I wint, 'twas waker an' waker I was growin', till
at long last, down I dhrops, an' couldn't move hand or fut. I dunna how
long I lay there, so I don't; but anyhow, who should be _sthreelin_'
acrass the hill, but an old baccagh.
"'My bouchaleen dhas,' says he--'my beautiful boy,' says he--'you're in
a bad state I find. You've thramped upon Dunroe hungry grass, an' only
for somethin' it's a prabeen you'd be, afore ever you'd see home. Can
you spake at all?' says he.
"'Oh, murdher,' says I,' I b'lieve not.'
"'Well here,' says the baccagh, 'open your purty gub, an' take in a thrifle
of this male, an' you'll soon be stout enough.' Well, to be sure, it bates
the world! I had hardly tasted the male, whin I found myself as well as
ever; bekase you know, mudher, that's the cure for it. 'Now,' says the
baccagh, 'this is the spot the fairies planted their hungry grass, an' so
you'll know it agin when you see it. What's your name?' says he.
"'Phelim O'Toole,' says I.
"'Well,' says he, 'go home an' tell your father an' mother to offer up a
prayer to St. Phelim, your namesake, in regard that only for him you'd
be a corp before any relief would a come near you; or, at any rate, wid
the fairies.'"
The father and mother, although with a thousand proofs before them
that Phelim, so long as he could at all contrive a lie, would never speak
truth, yet were so blind to his well-known propensity, that they always
believed the lie to be truth, until they discovered it to be a falsehood.
When he related a story, for instance, which carried not only
improbability, but impossibility on the face of it, they never questioned
his veracity. The neighbors, to be sure, were vexed and nettled at the
obstinacy of their credulity; especially on reflecting that they were as
sceptical in giving credence to the narrative of any other person, as all
rational people ought to be. The manner of training up Phelim, and
Phelim's method of governing them, had become a by-word in the
village. "Take a sthraw to him, like Sheelah O'Toole," was often
ironically said to mothers remarkable for mischievous indulgence to
their children.
The following day proved that no charm could protect Phelim from the

small-pox. Every symptom of that disease became quite evident; and
the grief of his doting parents amounted to distraction. Neither of them
could be declared perfectly sane; they knew not how to proceed--what
regimen to adopt for him, nor what remedies to use. A week elapsed,
but each succeeding day found him in a more dangerous state. At
length, by the advice of some of the neighbors, an old crone, called
"Sonsy Mary," was called in to administer relief through the medium of
certain powers which were thought to be derived from something holy
and also supernatural. She brought a mysterious bottle, of which he was
to take every third spoonful, three times a day; it was to be
administered by the hand of a young girl of virgin innocence, who was
also to breathe three times down his throat, holding his nostrils closed
with her fingers. The father and mother were to repeat a certain number
of prayers; to promise against swearing, and to kiss the hearth-stone
nine times--the one turned north, and the other south. All these
ceremonies were performed with care, but Phelim's malady appeared to
set them at defiance; and the old crone would have lost her character in
consequence, were it not that Larry, on the day of the cure, after having
promised not to swear, let fly an oath at a hen, whose cackling
disturbed Phelim. This saved her character, and threw Larry and
Sheelah into