violence in the
parish; so that the claims upon his bounty of hundreds who lay huddled
together in cold cabins, in out-houses, and even behind ditches, were
incessant as well, as heart-rending. The number of interments that took
place daily in the parish was awful; nothing could be seen but funerals
attended by groups of ragged and emaciated creatures from whose hollow
eyes gleamed forth the wolfish fire of famine. The wretched mendicants
were countless, and the number of coffins that lay on the public
roads--where, attended by the nearest relatives of the deceased, they
had been placed for the purpose of procuring charity--were greater than
ever had been remembered by the oldest inhabitant.

Such was the state of the parish when our poor scholar complained one
day in school of severe illness. The early symptoms of the prevailing
epidemic were well known; and, on examining more closely into his
situation, it was clear that, according to the phraseology of the
people, he had "got the faver on his back"--had caught "a heavy load
of the faver." The Irish are particularly apprehensive of contagious
maladies. The moment it had been discovered that Jemmy was infected, his
schoolfellows avoided him with a feeling of terror scarcely credible,
and the inhuman master was delighted at any circumstance, however
calamitous, that might afford him a pretext for driving the friendless
youth out of the school.

"Take," said he, "every thing belongin' to you out of my establishment:
you were always a plague to me, but now more so than ever. Be quick,
sirra, and nidificate for yourself somewhere else. Do you want to
thranslate my siminary into an hospital, and myself into Lazarus, as
president? Go off, you wild goose! and conjugate _aegroto_ wherever
you find a convenient spot to do it in." The poor boy silently and with
difficulty arose, collected his books, and, slinging on his satchel,
looked to his schoolfellows, as if he had said, "Which of you will
afford me a place where to lay my aching head?" All, however, kept aloof
from him; he had caught the contagion, and the contagion, they knew, had
swept the people away in vast numbers. At length he spoke. "Is there any
boy among you," he inquired, "who will bring me home? You know I am a
stranger, an' far from my own, God help me!"

This was followed by a profound silence. Not one of those who had so
often befriended him, or who would, on any other occasion, share their
bed and their l