Hugh Quigley - The Cross and the Shamrock

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"Paul," she whispered, "look here! This is money left, I suppose, by the
priest." Paul, who was acquainted with American coin, took up the eight
pieces, or quarters, in silver, and the bill, and examining them by the
candle, said, "O Bid, see how good the priest is! He has left us five
dollars, or one pound, without saying a word about it. Mother, how do
you feel? Look! the priest left us a deal of money here quietly."

"God reward him for it," answered she, with a hoarse and broken voice.
"Paul, darling, go on your knees, you and your sister and brothers, till
I give ye my blessing before I die. Quick, children, quick, while I have
strength."

"O mother! mother! sure you aren't going to leave us orphans? May be
you will get better now, after extreme unction."

"Kneel down here by my side, my children," said she, feeling that her
time was now short. "Paul, do you promise me you will be a good boy,
love God, and keep his commandments?"

"Yes, mother, with God's help. O woe!"

"Will you watch over your brothers, and sister Bridget, and go with them
to the priest, telling him not to forget that I gave ye all up to his
care, and the care of God and his blessed mother?"

"O, I will."

"Bridget, Patrick, and Eugene, will ye obey, and be said by Paul, who is
the oldest?"

"Yes, mother, please God," they answered, amidst sobbing and tears that
half choked them.

"God bless ye, and guard ye, and save ye from all dangers of soul and
body. I give ye up to God. I place ye under the holy care of the
blessed mother of God. I pray that ye may preserve pure the faith
of Saint Patrick. I bless ye. O, pray for me. Jesus, into thy
hands--Jesus--Mary--Jesus----." There was a sigh, and by a single effort
the soul extricated itself from its prison of clay to join the ranks of
its kindred spirits. The widow O'Clery is no more, and Paul and his
brethren are orphans indeed.

For a few minutes there was a deep silence in that chamber of death, and
Paul repeated the "De Profundis," in English, out of his Prayer Book;
but when the cold and ghastly form of death was perceived by this poor
company to be all that was left of their darling and affectionate
mother, loud and mournful were their lamentations. Then, and not till
then, did the forlorn state to which they were reduced reveal itself
even to their juvenile minds. There they were, helpless and destitute,
without father or mother, friend or relation; on every side strangers,
cold, hunger, and want. The mysterious hand of Providence conducted them
from comparative comfort, if not luxury, through several stages of
trial, danger, and trouble, till they were now entirely stripped, like
Job, of all but an existence to which death was preferable. Many are the
phases of misery and crosses with which the life of man is surrounded in
this vale of tears; but we think the condition of the orphan, deprived
of both parents, and thrown for support or existence on a strange and
selfish world, the most desolate of all. A policeman was the first who
was attracted to the house of mourning by the wailing and cries of those
whom this night saw alone and desolate. Mrs. Doherty, attended by an
Irish servant maid from a neighboring house, were the next visitors;
and, after piously kneeling around the corpse to offer their fervent
prayers for the soul, they prepared to "lay out" the body. This
consists, as all are probably aware, of washing the corpse, clothing it
in clean linen, extending it on a table or bed, and putting up such
temporary fixtures as would deprive the room in which it lies of the
gloom and repulsiveness attendant on such an event. After arranging all
things so that she looked "a decent corpse," with the _religious habit_
around her, Mrs. Doherty hung up the crucifix, pinned to a white linen
sheet at the head of where she lay, placed her "Ursuline Manual" on her
breast, and her beads on her arms, crossed on the body.

"She was a handsome, fine woman, in her day, God bless her," said Mrs.
Doherty.

"Yes, any body can tell that," answered Norry. "I wonder how they came
here at all."

"I know it well," answered old Peggy Doherty. "She telled me all about
it afore she took bad entirely. Her man was well off, and had a brother
next to the bishop in the church, in the county of C----. When landlords
began to root out the people from their homes, the brother of Mr.
O'Clery, her husband, wrote letters in the newspapers about the cruelty
of the landlord, who was called 'Lord Mandemon;' and on that account,
and because the priest took part with the poor,--as they always do, God
bless 'em!--the landlord came down on Mr. O'Clery, sold out his sixty
milch cows, after being twenty-one days in pound; and though the cows
were worth ten pounds each, Lord Mandemon's agent sold them by auction,
and he bought them back himself for two pounds each; and so the poor
family was ruined. After that, O'Clery sold out another farm he had;
and, collecting all that was due to him, he came to America, against the
advice of the priest, his brother. He thought, he said, to live with his
family in 'a free country,' where there were no landlords or tyrants,
and, while he had some means, to buy a farm which he could call his own.
But he took the cholera when within sight of land, and he only lived a
few days. God rest his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed.
And God help those poor orphans," she said, piously, looking to where
the little group, wearied from grief and crying, lay asleep on a straw
bed.

"I do really pity the poor creatures," said Norry. "I suppose they will
have to go to the poorhouse."

"I hope not; God forbid, _asthore_, the poorhouse is such a dangerous
place for Catholics. I heard the priest say he would call to-morrow; and
may be he will _do for_ the little dears."

"'Tis hard for him to provide for all that are in distress," said Norry.

"I know it; but it would be a murther to let such well-reared and decent
children into the hands of those poormasters, but especially that Van
Stingey, whose great delight is, they say, to convart the children of
Catholics to his own sect. See what he done to the little Cronin
children, whose father and mother died lately."

"I heard of that; but I am afraid the priest won't be able to call on
to-morrow, as he promised, if it continue to snow so."

"_O yea_, God forbid; but it is a terrible night. Do ye hear how it
blows? _O Heirna Dioa._"

"Yes, and the snow is falling in mountains; the roads will be blocked
up, and hills and hollows will be on a level in the morning."

"God help every poor Christian that is out to-night," said Mrs. Doherty.
"I hope the Lord will save his reverence from all harm."

"Amen!" answered Norry. "He will have a hard night of it. Had he far to
go?"

"He had, _agra_, forty miles out in Vermont; but sure he could not
refuse going. The woman is just dying; and besides, she is a Protestant,
who wants to die in the faith."

"Happy for her," said Norry, "if he overtakes her alive. How good the
priests are to these Yankees, although they are always ridiculing the
clergy; yet, if one of them is going to die, the priest not only
forgives them, but is willing to travel any distance to do them a
service."

"Sure that's the orders of God and the church," said Mrs. Doherty. "It
is not for them alone they are working, but for God, you know."

"That's true," said Norry. "But still and all, when one hears how they
are always ridiculing priests and nuns, and sees how they hate our
religion, it is very hard, I think, to forgive them."

"Yes, _agra_," said Peggy, who was better informed than Norry; "so it is
hard for flesh and blood to forgive the heretics; but, unless we forgive
them, God won't forgive us. The priest knows this well; and so, if there
were two sick calls to come at one time to him, as happened lately, one
a Protestant and the other a Catholic, he would go to the Protestant
first."

"That beats all," said Norry, "and is more than I would do, if I were
the priest; for I know well all that is said of him behind his back."

"What harm will all that scandalous talk do the priest?" said Peggy. "It
only does him good; and he has a blessing for being 'spoken evil of'
like our Lord. He forgives all those whom God forgives; and so, if his
enemy, the Protestant, falls sick, and wants his services, he goes to
him _first_, in order that he may be brought into the church, where
alone he can be saved."

"Thanks be to God," said Norry. "Is not it a wonder the Protestants
don't understand this, and look on the priests and the church as their
best friends, seeing that the priests are as ready, and readier, to
attend to them than to the Catholics themselves?"

"How can they understand it when they are blinded by love of money,
impurity, and the hatred that the ministers excite against the church in
the minds of their hearers? Wasn't our Lord himself hated by those whom
he most loved, and put to death by them? It is so with every priest who
follows his steps, now as well as then. The world will always hate
good."

This Christian philosophy was a little too sublime for poor Norry's
mind, who was a long time among the Yankees, sufficiently instructed in
the customs of this "free country" to be ready to observe the law of
"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and life for life;" and who, besides, had
her naturally warm temper rather spoiled from her continual rencontres
with her mistress on such subjects as confession, priests' celibacy,
purgatory, and other subjects too profound for the understanding of her
mistress to know any thing about them, and too sacred in the eyes of
Norry to allow them to be irreverently handled without saying something
in their defence. It requires not only a perfect acquaintance with the
sublime and heavenly tenets of Catholicity to speak of them with
precision and propriety, but, in addition to a deep study of the truths
of true religion, the _practice of her precepts_, and the frequent
reception of the sacraments, are necessary to imbue the mind with the
true Christian notions regarding her high commands.

Poor Norry "had not a chance," she said, of going to her duties for
several years; and that is why she considered "Peggy Doherty's" talk
about forgiveness so strange and unaccountable.

"Yes, a _Greffour_," resumed "old Peggy," "we must forgive all the
world; and myself would forgive any thing sooner than kidnappin' or
stealing away the children of Catholics, which these Yankee parsons are
so fond of doing."

"O, so they are, the villains," said Norry. "Did they take away or steal
any of this poor woman's children? 'Tis a wonder if they didn't."

"Well, besides the four children you see here, _asthore_, she had
another neat child, one year old, named Aloysia, whom a lady up town
took with her, two months since, to rear her up along with her own
children; and it was only about ten days since she got news of her
death. When the poor woman heard this, the heart broke entirely within
her, especially as she could not be present at the child's death bed or
at the funeral."

"Why, that's rather strange," said Norry. "Did they send her word that
she was sick?"

"Not a word. It was only when I went up to Mrs. Sillerman's, the other
day, to inquire about the child, she comes out and tells me the child
died, and was decently interred. When I told the mother, she cried out,
'O Aloysia, Aloysia, my darling! are you, too, gone?' And she was not
herself since."

"I do think there must be something wrong in the matter," said Norry.
"Did you tell the priest?"

"No, I did not, for I had not time," said Mrs. Doherty. "God forgive me.
I have a doubt in my own mind that the lady of the house (I renounce
judging her) was not honest when she told me of the child's death.
'Perhaps,' says I to myself, 'she is kidnapped.' And she was such a
purty angel, with a face you would delight looking on; and on her right
hand,--the Lord save us!--a circle like a ring was on her middle finger.
She was too good to live; and was made for heaven, I suppose. Glory be
to God."

CHAPTER III.

AN OFFICIAL.

Our poormaster, Van Stingey, was a very conscientious officer. He never
squandered what he called the people's property, the commonwealth. He
was none of your vulgar, ordinary poormasters. He did not want the
office; they only forced it on to him. Like some of your great
statesmen, he acted for _man_, as he emphatically said; not for poor
widows and orphans, taken one by one; that was only a secondary
consideration. His whole duty, his very existence, seemed to be needed
for the good of man, or humanity in general. The question with him was,
not how to relieve this or that poor man or woman. _That_ might engage
the attention of a man of no intelligence, no education, or no
philosophy: what he aspired to was, always to act by principle; to act
so that the state, or the people who owned _real estate_, and who
elected him against his will, to see that their interests were attended
to, whatever became of the poor. Accordingly, when he heard of any case
of particular distress, such as that a poor emigrant died of misery in a
cold, deserted house, our poormaster regretted it, as an individual;
but, as an officer, he said, he acted according to principle. He could
not betray his constituents, who elected him against his will, by any
act of extravagance; and the good of the many must be consulted. "Even
the Lord," he used to say,--for he was a religious man,--"when he
created the sun, left spots in it." The best statesman must sometimes do
what may be cruel to the few; but, in the end, it would turn out for the
good of man. This district, since his election, now twice successively,
had made a saving of some two hundred a year since he became its
officer; and that would, in time, open the eyes of the people as to who
were proper candidates for office, tend to diminish taxes, and, in fact,
be a work for man--progress and virtue. Besides this, Mr. Poormaster Van
Stingey had "got religion," by which he was wonderfully enlightened,
having been so lucky as to gain that valuable accomplishment just six
months, and only six months, before his election, at a camp meeting held
near the village of M----ville.

"I tell you what, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Knicks," said he,
"there is nothin' like religion. Before I got religion, and jined the
church, I didn't have any knowledge of God. I used to pity these
emigrants, seeing them poor and pale looking as death; but now, sir, I
reads my Bible, and finds that the Lord must not regard nor love these
Papists, wher'n he lets them run down so. The word of life is great."

"Wal, I do not know. I care not a straw about any church; but my old
mother used to teach us, when children, that poverty and crosses were no
sign of the Lord's displeasure; as witness holy Job and Christ himself,
who were poor. In fact, she never stopped telling us, when boys, that
riches were dangerous, the love of money the root of all evil, and that
'whom he chastiseth the Lord loveth.'"

"O, but your mother was a stiff Papist, you know, and did not understand
the word of God."

"Yes, sir-ee, she did that; for I well recollect that, in the many
arguments she had with father, she always had the best of it. That she
had."

"She may argue from Jesuit books and the like; but the Bible she durst
not look at, you know, Knicks."

"I know better, Van. Don't you talk so. I have got the very Bible she
used and read every day--a great large one, printed in London. Mother
was English, and herself a convert to the church of Rome, though father
was Dutch."

"Why, I never knowed that, Knicks. That was a great misfortune. These
priests, by the arts of Antichrist, will come round simple folks so,
that they often succeed in leading them down to destruction."

"Well, sir," said Knicks, "I can tell you I never met a Christian but my
mother; and I cannot believe or listen to you say she went to
destruction, but to heaven, if there is such a place. And again: if I
were to embrace any religion, it would be the Roman Catholic religion;
for it is the only _honest religion_ there is. Father often brought
Methodist and Presbyterian ministers to make mother give up her'n; but
it was no go. She always treated them civil; but they had the worst of
the argument, I can tell you. They brought their Bibles, and she her'n;
and then they would set to, and be at it, till at last they were obliged
to give up. The only difference between her Bible and theirs is, that
her'n contained some fourteen or fifteen books more than the Protestant
Bible. The end of it was, that father turned with mother, and had the
Irish priest O'Shane to attent him afore he died. Mother got us all
baptized too."

"Indeed!" carelessly ejaculated our official. "I must call and see that
Bible of yours some day."

This conversation--which happened a few days before the death of our
emigrant widow--between his neighbor "Knicks" and our official shows
what an _enlightened gentleman_ he was. Since his elevation to office,
he also got promotion to another situation, which, though not so
lucrative as that of poormaster, in the course of time, by proper
management, promised to come to something. In a certain school house in
his vicinity, where the faithful were too poor, too irreligious, or too
pernicious to hire a preacher, our official held forth every Sunday, and
several evenings on the week days, at prayer meetings, protracted
meetings, and other roaring exercises. And to do him credit, his nasal
accent and piercing shrill voice made him a capital substitute for the
_hired_ regular Methodist preacher. He could be heard for nearly a mile
distant calling on the _brethern_ and _sistern_ to come to heaven.

"O, let us come!" he would cry; "we were made and intended for heaven. I
see the shining seats, I see the crystal fountains, I see the Lord
sitting on the throne. Come, sisters, come! I could embrace ye all for
the Lord's sake. I could hide ye in my bosom. O! O!"

There were some whose faith was not strong enough to place implicit
reliance on the veracity of this very enlightened "minister of the
word;" but the great majority believed, or pretended to believe, and
expressed their faith by crying out, "Glory! glo-ry! glo-r-y!"

If a more particular or personal description of our official is
required, we can state, from minute observation, that Mr. Van Stingey
was of the middle size, of thin, cadaverous appearance, short neck,
snake head, with lank, sandy hair, nose flat and simex-like, small eyes,
one of which he kept continually shut, as if he supposed himself a match
for the poor whom he had to deal with by keeping one "eye skinned,"
reserving the other for some important office in church or state, to
which he unquestionably aspired. Several times during the two months the
destitute widow and her family were reduced to penury and sickness. Our
worthy master was apprised of their condition by the neighbors; but he
always answered that the law did not allow him to spend any more, just
now; that these emigrants ought to remain at home; that they had no
right to this country; that he heard a very godly minister foretell last
year, at camp meeting, that the Romanists would yet have this country;
that too many were coming by millions; that he feared that they could
not be converted as fast as they were arriving; that they ought to be
made pay a heavy sum, or sent back. "In short," said he one day to poor
Mrs. Doherty, "I was not elected by them Irish paupers, and I never
expect to be."

"If every thing you say was as true as that last word, I think you would
be an honest man for wonst," said Mrs. Doherty; "for there is no fear
that an Irishman's or a Christian's vote will ever elect the like of
you. God forgive you this day!"

To suppose that any man could display such _bona fide_ ignorance as this
official did in the foregoing, would be to form an incorrect and
inadequate estimate of the human mind. The fact was that Van Stingey was
a false, low, cruel man, whose soul, steeped in the sensuality of his
past life, had lost all that was divine in its nature. His circumstances
were so reduced by his crimes and dissipation, that, being "too lazy to
work, and ashamed to beg," he assumed first the guise of religion to
gain popularity; and when he had "got religion," then the teachers of
the stuff which they call by that noble name, to keep it respectable,
procured him this office as a reward for his hypocrisy.

This was the official who startled the inmates of our house of mourning
about five o'clock in the morning, when, thrusting his head inside the
door, he cried out, "A corpse there, eh?"

"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 mass
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, God 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,
God bless him."

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

"The dickens a ship 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 God, 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
God, 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 God without the
Bible; and you Roman Catholics are not allowed its use."

"God 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, God 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.

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