jor, an' build a shed for him on the road-side here, jist against the
ditch. It's as dhry as powdher. Thin we can go through the neighbors,
an' git thim to sit near him time about, an' to bring him little
_dhreeniens_ o' nourishment."

"Divil a purtier! Come thin, let us get a lot o' the neighbors, an' set
about it, poor bouchal. Who knows but it may bring down a blessin' upon
us aither in this world or the next."

"Amin! I pray Gorra! an' so it will sure I doesn't the Catechiz say
it? 'There is but one Church,' says the Catechiz, 'one Faith, an' one
Baptism.' Bedad, there's a power o' fine larnin' in the same Catechiz,
so there is, an' mighty improvin'."

An Irishman never works for wages with half the zeal which he displays
when working for love. Ere many hours passed, a number of the neighbors
had assembled, and Jemmy found himself on a bunch of clean straw, in a
little shed erected for him at the edge of the road.

Perhaps it would be impossible to conceive a more gloomy state of misery
than that in which young M'Evoy found himself. Stretched on the side
of the public road, in a shed formed of a few loose sticks covered
over with "scraws," that is, the sward of the earth pared into thin
stripes--removed above fifty perches from any human habitation--his body
racked with a furious and oppressive fever--his mind conscious of all
the horrors by which he was surrounded--without the comforts even of a
bed or bedclothes--and, what was worst of all, those from whom he might
expect kindness, afraid; to approach him! Lying helpless, under these
circumstances, it ought not to be wondered at, if he wished that death
might at once close his extraordinary sufferings, and terminate those
straggles which filial piety had prompted him to encounter.

This certainly is a dark picture, but our humble hero knew that even
there the power and goodness of God could support him. The boy trusted
in God; and when removed into his little shed, and stretched upon his
clean straw, he felt that his situation was, in good sooth, comfortable
when contrasted with what it might have been, if left to perish behind a
ditch, exposed to the scorching-heat of the sun by day, and the dews
of heaven by night. He felt the hand of God even in this, and placed
himself, with a short but fervent prayer, under his fatherly protection.

Irishmen however, are not just that description of persons who can
pursue their usual avocations, and see a fellow-creature