Blair Collection > Beside the fire

THE ALP-LUACHRA. 59
fore. He raised his head a second time, and he had a
little green herb in his hand. " Do you see this? " said
he. " Any place in Ireland that this herb grows, there
he's an alt-pluachra near it, and you have swallowed an
alt-pluachra."
" How do you know that r " said the sick man. " If that
was so, sure the doctors would tell it to me before
now."
"The doctors ! "said the beggarman. "Ah I God give
you sense, sure they're only a flock of omadawns. I tell
you again, and believe me, that it's an alt-pluachra you
swallowed. Didn't you say yourself that you felt some-
thing leaping in your stomach the first day after you
being sick ? That was the alt-pluachra ; and as the place
he was in was strange to him at first, he was uneasy in
it, moving backwards and forwards, but when he was a
couple of days there, he settled himself, and he found the
place comfortable, and that's the reason you're keeping
so thin, for every bit you're eating the alt-pluachra is
getting the good out of it, and you said yourself that one
side of you was swelled ; that's the place where the nasty
thing is living."
The sick man would not believe him at first, but the
beggarman kept on talking and proving on him that
it was the truth he was saying, and when his wife and
daughter came back again to the house, the beggarman
told them the same things, and they were ready enough
to believe him.
The sick man put no faith in it himself, but they were
all talking to him about it until they prevailed on him
at last to call in three doctors together until he should tell
them this new story. The three came together, and when
they heard all the boccuch (beggarman) was saying, and
all the talk of the women, it is what they laughed, and