ooth, long and yellow as saffron. His
face was of unusual length, and his parchment cheeks formed two inward
curves, occasioned by the want of his back teeth. His breeches were open
at the knees; his polar legs were without stockings; but his old brogues
were foddered, as it is called, with a wisp of straw, to keep his feet
warm. His arms were long, even in proportion to his body, and his bony
fingers resembled claws rather than anything! else we can now remember.
They (the claws): were black as ebony, and resembled in length and
sharpness those of a cat when she is stretching herself after rising
from the! hearth. He wore an old _barrad_ of the day, the greasy top of
which fell down upon the collar of his old cloak, and over his shoulder
was a bag which, from its appearance, must have contained something not
very weighty, as he walked on without seeming to travel as a man who
carried a burden. He had a huge staff in his right hand, the left having
a hold of his bag. Woodward at first mistook him for a mendicant, but
upon looking at him more closely, he perceived nothing of that watchful
and whining cant for alms which marks the character of the professional
beggar. The old skeleton walked on, apparently indifferent and
independent, and never once put himself into the usual posture
of entreaty. This, and the originality of his appearance, excited
Woodward's curiosity, and he resolved to speak to him.

"Well, my good old man, what may you be carrying in the bag?"

The man looked at him respectfully, and raising his hand and staff,
touched his barrad, and replied:

"A few yarribs, your honor."

"Yarribs? What the deuce is that?"

"Why, the yarribs that grow, sir--to cure the people when they are
sick."

"O, you mean herbs."

"I do, sir, and I gather them too for the potecars."

"O, then you are what they call a herbalist."

"I believe I am, sir, if you put that word against (to) a man that
gethers yarribs."

"Yes, that's what I mean. You sell them to the apothecaries, I suppose?"

"I do a little, sir, but I use the most of them myself. Sorra much the
potecars knows about the use o' them; they kill more than they cure wid
'em, and calls them that understands what they're good for rogues and
quacks. May the Lord forgive them this day! _Amin, acheernah!_ (Amen, O
Lord!)"

"And do you administer these herbs to the sick?"

"I do, sir, to the sick of all kinds--man and baste. There's nothing
like them, sir, bek