g the honest woman. Superstition had its own
peculiar remedy for the small-pox, and Sheelah was resolved to apply it.
Accordingly she borrowed a neighbor's ass, drove it home with Phelim,
however, on its back, took the interesting youth by the nape of the
neck, and, in the name of the Trinity, shoved him three times under it,
and three times over it. She then put a bit of bread into its mouth,
until the ass had mumbled it a little, after which she gave the savory
morsel to Phelim, as a _bonne bouche_. This was one preventive against
the small-pox; but another was to be tried.

She next clipped off the extremities of Phelim's elf locks, tied them in
linen that was never bleached, and hung them beside the Gospel about
his neck. This was her second cure; but there was still a third to be
applied. She got the largest onion possible, which, having cut into nine
parts, she hung from the roof tree of the cabin, having first put the
separated parts together. It is supposed that this has the power of
drawing infection of any kind to itself. It is permitted to remain
untouched, until the disease has passed from the neighborhood, when it
is buried as far down in the earth as a single man can dig. This was
a third cure; but there was still a fourth. She borrowed ten asses'
halters from her neighbors, who, on hearing that they were for Phelim's
use, felt particular pleasure in obliging her. Having procured these,
she pointed them one by one at Phelim's neck, until the number nine
was completed. The tenth, she put on him, and with the end of it in
her hand, led him like an ass, nine mornings, before sunrise, to a
south-running stream, which he was obliged to cross. On doing this, two
conditions were to be fulfilled on the part of Phelim; he was bound, in
the first place, to keep his mouth filled, during the ceremony, with a
certain fluid which must be nameless: in the next, to be silent from the
moment he left home until his return.

Sheelah having satisfied herself that everything 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 bro