The Cross and the Shamrock Part 3

"The Lord save us! Who are you, or what brings you here this hour o'

night?" said old granny Doherty, suspecting him as "nothing good."

"Like you Irish, allers asking questions," said he, discharging a ma.s.s of tobacco almost in her face. "I am the poormaster; and, having received a report that there was a dead pauper here, thought I would have it put out of the way early, before the folks would get up."

"You are a very polite gintleman, G.o.d bless you. I hope she won't be buried so soon. This is not the custom in any Christian country. After to-morrow will be soon enough. You need not be in a hurry. We expect the priest here to see to the children, as he has already left some help, G.o.d bless him."

"She must be enterred this morning, having died with the s.h.i.+p fever, I suppose. The citizens expect me to do my _dooty_; and that I will do, if the Lord spares me."

"The d.i.c.kens a s.h.i.+p fever nor no other fever she had; but the poor woman's heart broke, seeing what she had come to in a strange country,"

said Mrs. Doherty, pityingly.

"Wal, wal, if she had trusted in the Lord, and knew the word of G.o.d, he would not have deserted her as he has," hypocritically answered the official.

"I beg your pardon, sir, don't judge rashly. She was not deserted by G.o.d, but died content and happy, after all the rites of her holy religion were administered to her," was the prompt reply.

"You think so; but I want to know how she could love G.o.d without the Bible; and you Roman Catholics are not allowed its use."

"G.o.d help those that can't read so," said Mrs. Doherty. "There is no chance for me or my old man, for neither of us can read it; but not so Mrs. O'Clery, G.o.d be good to her. She had her Bible, and many more good books."

"Yes, sir," said Paul, joining in the dialogue. "We have always had the true Catholic Bible, and mother always read it on her knees."

"Wal, my good lad, you are _pooty_ smart; and now get you ready, with the rest of you little critters, and come on the sleigh I will send for you. Let's see how many of you there are. One, two, three, four--a great lot of ye. As I was saying, be ready to come up to the county house till I can get some folks to take ye in to keep till ye are of age."

"The priest, sir," said Paul, "promised to call to-day; and as he already has left us a good sum of money, I know the good man will provide for us till he writes to my uncle, who would be very sorry to hear of our going to the poorhouse or the county house, though it may be a better place."

"My young lad, you will be provided for by law, and don't fail to be ready by ten o'clock," said the official, sternly, as he left the room.

In a few hours after, the body of the widow O'Clery was deposited in a rough, unplaned pine coffin, and placed on board a two-horse, open sleigh. The four orphans were stowed around in the same vehicle, and, in care of a constable, the _cortege_ drove off at full speed to the cemetery. By half past eleven, the remains of the widow were consigned to their kindred earth, the few lumps of hard frozen clay on the surface her only monument--the sobs, sighs, and prayers of her own dear children the only requiem uttered over her lowly and soon-to-be-forgotten tomb.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors." (Apoc. xiv. 13.)

CHAPTER IV.

THE POORHOUSE.

When Father O'Shane left for the village of B----, in Vermont, to administer the rites of Christian unction to a departing soul, the roads were very hard to travel, and his progress, in company with his faithful guide, was tedious and slow in the extreme. The call was to a sick woman named Finmore, who was in the last stage of consumption, and who had often, during her illness, expressed a desire that she should be attended by a priest before she would die. Her husband did not oppose her wish, but was yet either too indifferent on the subject, or too lazy, to go such a journey as to the city of T---- in search of a personage of whom he stood in such awe, and knew so little of, as the Catholic priest. A neighboring Irish farmer, named O'Leary, hearing of the wish of the dying woman, volunteered to bring the priest, if "there was one to be found in all America," he said, "provided he got a horse and wagon from the stable of the rich Yankee." And it was in company with this simple but brave and faithful man that Father O'Shane set out on the evening of the widow's death. They had not advanced many miles, however, when the wind veered round to the north-west, and a most violent snow storm blew quite in their face. Slow and unpleasant was their progress over the hard, icy road; but in the course of a few hours their farther advance became an utter impossibility with a wagon. They had, therefore, to stop at a tavern; and after a good deal of entreaty, and after having fed their horse, they succeeded in hiring from the boss the use of a sleigh to carry them along to Vermont.

"Ye can't travel nohow to-night," said the boss; "the roads will be blocked up, chuck full."

"We'll have to travel, sir," said the Irishman, "or die in the attempt; so let us have the cutter. Charge what you have a mind to."

"Why, what in the world can be the matter? Ye ain't subpoenaed, or going to arrest somebody?" said the jolly boss.

"Ah, no such thing, man," said the farmer; "but there is a woman dangerously ill, and yon gentleman in the sitting room is a doctor, going to visit her. Cost what it may, we must go ahead."

"O, that alters the case. Why did you not say so at first? and you should have had it and welcome. It will be ready in no time. Hitch on to that new, light cutter in the shed, Sam," said he to the hostler.

"Ya, ya," said Sam; and in five minutes the priest and his guide were again proceeding on their charitable mission. They reached their destination about two o'clock in the night, just one hour before the death of her on whose account they had come such a journey. Father O'Shane--poor old gentleman!--suffered terribly; had his ears frostbitten, and two of his fingers frozen. But no matter; a soul was to be saved, and that consideration alleviated all his sufferings, and rendered him dead to every thing--cold, pain, watchings, hunger, thirst, and weariness; nay, even death itself was but a trivial, inadequate price to be paid by a mortal man to gain an immortal soul to Christ and eternal happiness.

"'Tis an awful night, reverend sir," said O'Leary. "I fear we can't go ahead."

"What matter, O'Leary," said Father O'Shane, "as we reached in time?

What is this night and all its violence compared with the sufferings of a poor soul in the next world? All I regret is that you did not send me in the sick call sooner. All is well, however; she was perfectly conscious, and, I hope, worthily received all the rites of religion.

Hold up! you will rest well to-night, your conscience at ease, after having been engaged in such a meritorious act of charity."

In nothing does the church of G.o.d manifest the divinity of her origin and mission more than in the care which she bestows on her children, the adopted brethren of Jesus Christ, at the awful hour of death. She reserves all her good things for this her last service to her children.

She sends her keys there, to the bedside of the dying man, to open to him the gate to the calm and peaceful walks of justification. She sends her oils thither, too, to anoint the Christian gladiator for his last and final struggle with his powerful enemies. She sends her divine manna, to strengthen him and sustain him for the trying and unknown journey; and she sends the music of her sweet hymns and litanies to cheer him on, and the light of indulgences and benedictions to guide his soul, illumine his understanding, and shed the rays of their heavenly reflection on the difficult pa.s.sage that he has to traverse. And this food, these blessings, gifts, and graces, she has ready for all repentant sinners without exception, be they the inmates of the true fold, or straying without the boundaries of the city of G.o.d; be they the timorous souls who are already washed, or the negligent, who have followed the hard ways of the world. If, in her other functions, the spouse of Christ is "terrible as an army set in array," "fair as the moon, and beautiful as the setting sun," in this, her last office at the death bedside, she is all mercy, tenderness, and goodness. O, how cold, selfish, and intolerable would life be, if the Catholic church was not present, on all occasions, with the graces, blessings, and consolations of Christ!

"O Lord, if it be thy will, deprive us of every thing--riches, health, renown, pleasure; but never leave thy creatures, thy inheritance, thy children, without the consolations of thy church! O Lord, the many sheep that are here not of thy fold gather and bring in speedily, that there may be but one fold and one Shepherd, as thou thyself hast foretold."

Thus prayed this pious priest of G.o.d, after having added another strayed sheep to the fold of his divine Master; and his soul was at peace.

For two days the storm continued unabated, the whole country becoming like an undulating ocean of snow. Drift snow, mountain high, was acc.u.mulated in the valleys between hills; whole herds of sheep and cattle were suffocated; and the bodies of several teamsters, whose teams were overset, were dug out lifeless from under the drifts by the men who had a.s.sembled with their ox teams and shovels to open the interrupted communication with the city.

Father O'Shane bemoaned his fate in doleful terms; the more so as Sunday was approaching, when he feared he should be absent from his congregation; and he also regretted that he had it not in his power, according to his promise to the widow O'Clery, to visit her next day, and provide for her poor orphans among the benevolent of his flock. And, well aware of the character of the hard-hearted Van Stingey, he shuddered for the fate of the children.

The apprehensions of the good priest were not groundless; for no sooner was the body of Mrs. O'Clery consigned to its narrow, cold habitation, than the official, a.s.sisting the children into the sleigh that had borne their mother's body to the tomb, drove off in a rapid trot towards the poorhouse.

"Have we far to go yet, sir?" said Paul, thinking that the "county house" was something different from the much dreaded poorhouse. "I am afraid Bridget will perish with cold, sir."

"No fears of her; she's hardy, I guess."

"Yes, sir, but her dress is so very light."

"Well, she can pull that ere buffalo around her."

"Ou, hou, hou!" cried Bridget, breathing on her little bare hands, which she kept pressed to her lips.

"I hope, sir, you are not going to take us to the poorhouse," said Paul; "we don't want to go there. The priest that attended my mother--G.o.d rest her soul!--told us he would provide for us."

"Indeed! How can he do so?" said Van Stingey.

"Why, sir, I don't know; but perhaps he will write to my uncle, who is a vicar general in Ireland, and he will send us money to take us back home."

"Is your uncle in the British sarvice, then, and a general in the army?"

"No, sir, but he is a priest next to the bishop in station in the church."

"That's it, eh? Wal, I guess you better not talk of going back, any how.

You must live here in this free country, and learn to be a man and a Christian--a thing you could not be at home, in the old country."

"I beg your pardon, sir," replied Paul; "the very best Christians are in Ireland, which was once called the 'Isle of Saints,' when all the people were Catholics; and where I came from, even now, they are all mostly Catholics. There are in the whole parish but two _peelers_, the minister and his wife, and the t.i.the proctor, or collector of t.i.thes; in all, five Protestants."

"You are a lad, I see," said the official, as he dismounted from the sleigh and ordered the children to enter their new home.

"O, woe, woe, woe!" cried they, as they found themselves admitted as _paupers_, and enclosed within the precincts of the terrible poorhouse.

"O Lord, what will we do?" cried they. "O sir, don't keep us here, or send word to the priest first. I will go to his house, myself," said Paul.