e" in the wall, beneath the salt-box, lay a bottle of holy water to
keep the place purified; and against the copestone of the gable, on the
outside, grew a large lump of house-leek, as a specific for sore eyes
and other maladies.

In the corner of the garden were a few stalks of tansy "to kill the
thievin' worms in the childhre, the crathurs," together with a little
Rosenoble, Solomon's Seal, and Bugloss, each for some medicinal purpose.
The "lime wather" Mrs Sullivan could make herself, and the "bog bane"
for the _linh roe_, or heartburn, grew in their own meadow-drain; so
that, in fact, she had within her reach a very decent pharmacopoeia,
perhaps as harmless as that of the profession itself. Lying on the top
of the salt-box was a bunch of fairy flax, and sewed in the folds of her
own scapular was the dust of what had once been a four-leaved shamrock,
an invaluable specific "for seein' the good people," if they happened to
come within the bounds of vision. Over the door in the inside, over the
beds, and over the cattle in the outhouses, were placed branches of
withered palm, that had been consecrated by the priest on Palm Sunday;
and when the cows happened to calve, this good woman tied, with her own
hands, a woollen thread about their tails, to prevent them from being
overlooked by evil eyes, or _elf-shot_ by the fairies, who seem to
possess a peculiar power over females of every species during the period
of parturition. It is unnecessary to mention the variety of charms which
she possessed for that obsolete malady the colic, for toothache,
headaches, or for removing warts, and taking motes out of the eyes; let
it suffice to inform our readers that she was well stocked with them;
and, that in addition to this, she, together with her husband, drank a
potion made up and administered by an herb-doctor, for preventing for
ever the slightest misunderstanding or quarrel between man and wife.
Whether it produced this desirable object or not, our readers may
conjecture, when we add, that the herb-doctor, after having taken a
very liberal advantage of their generosity, was immediately compelled to
disappear from the neighbourhood, in order to avoid meeting with
Bartley, who had a sharp look-out for him, not exactly on his own
account, but "in regard," he said, "that it had no effect upon _Mary_,
at all at all"; whilst Mary, on the other hand, admitted its efficacy
upon herself, but maintained, "that _Bartley_ was worse nor eve