“Banaght dhea orrin!” he exclaimed, starting back; “the blessing of God be upon us!  Is it here before me you are?”

“Hould your tongue, man,” said the other, with a smile of mysterious triumph.  “Is it that you wondher at?  Ha, ha!  That’s little of it!”

“But how did you know my name? or who I was? or where I lived at all?  Heaven protect us! it’s beyant belief, clane out.”

“Hould your tongue,” replied the man; “don’t be axin’ me any thing o’ the kind.  Clear out, both of ye, till I begin my pisthrogues wid the sick child.  Clear out, I say.”

With some degree of apprehension, Larry and Sheelah left the house as they had been ordered, and the Fairy-man having pulled out a flask of poteen, administered a dose of it to Phelim; and never yet did patient receive his medicine with such a relish.  He licked his lips, and fixed his eye upon it with a longing look.

“Be Gorra,” said he, “that’s fine stuff entirely.  Will you lave me the bottle?”

“No,” said the Fairy-man, “but I’ll call an’ give you a little of it wanst a day.”

“Ay do,” replied Phelim; “the divil a fear o’ me, if I get enough of it.  I hope I’ll see you often.”

The Fairy-man kept his word; so that what with his bottle, a hardy constitution, and light bed-clothes, Phelim got the upper hand of his malady.  In a month he was again on his legs; but, alas! his complexion though not changed to deformity, was wofully out of joint.  His principal blemish, in addition to the usual marks left by his complaint, consisted in a drooping of his left eyelid, which gave to his whole face a cast highly ludicrous.

When Phelim felt thoroughly recovered, he claimed a pair of “leather crackers,” * a hare-skin cap, and a coat, with a pertinacity which kept the worthy couple in a state of inquietude, until they complied with his importunity.  Henceforth he began to have everything his own way.  His parents, sufficiently thankful that he was spared to them, resolved to thwart him no more.

     * Breeches made of sheep’s skin, so called from the
     noise they make in walking or running.

“It’s well we have him at all,” said his mother; “sure if we hadn’t him, we’d be breakin’ our hearts, and sayin’ if it ’ud plase God to send him back to us, that we’d be happy even wid givin’ him his own way.”

“They say it breaks their strinth, too,” replied his father, “to be crubbin’ them in too much, an’ snappin’ at thim for every hand’s turn, an’ I’m sure it does too.”

“Doesn’t he become the pock-marks well, the crathur?” said the mdther.

“Become!” said the father; “but doesn’t the droop in his eye set him off all to pieces!”

“Ay,” observed the mother, “an’ how the crathur went round among all the neighbors to show them the ‘leather crackers!’ To see his little pride out o’ the hare-skin cap, too, wid the hare’s ears stickin’ out of his temples.  That an’ the droopin:  eye undher them makes him look so cunnin’ an’ ginteel, that one can’t help havin’ their heart fixed upon him.”