ST. PATRICK
"SURE and it's Father Tom himself," said Norah's mother. She was in the
midst of the family washing. Katie was rocking baby Patsy, and Norah was
brushing up the rough mud floor. Every one stopped work at once and ran
out of the cabin, the mother wiping her hands on her apron, and Norah
lifting Patsy and carrying him along in her strong young arms.
The whole village had by this time turned out into the lane and gathered
around the kind fat priest, who had a smile for each and all.
There were old people hobbling along with the help of sticks, men who
had stopped work for the sake of a blessing from the priest, mothers
with babies in their arms, and children big and little.
It was a glad day when Father Tom came to the village to see how all
were getting along. There were so few people that the village had no
church of its own. They went four miles every Sunday to the nearest
service. Almost every one had to walk, for there were only two or three
donkeys and one or two rough carts in the whole place. A visit from the
priest was a great honour, a very great honour. The children knelt in
his pathway that he might lay his hands on them and bless them. The men
took off their hats and bowed their heads low as he passed by. The old
women made as good curtsys as their stiff backs would let them.
Norah put little Patsy down on the ground, whispering, "Patsy, dear,
touch the good man's robe with your little hands. It will make ye a
better boy."
Father Tom must have heard the whisper. He turned around and placed his
hands on the baby's curly head. Then he made a short prayer and blessed
him.
"I will take a sup of tea with you, Mrs. O'Neil," he said to Norah's
mother. "I am quite tired, for I have walked all the way from my home
this morning."
Mrs. O'Neil was much pleased. She hurried home, while the priest and
children followed her more slowly.
As she hung the kettle over the fire and set the table for the priest's
lunch, he gathered the children around him and told them stories of St.
Patrick, the dearest of all saints to the Irish people.
It was a long, long time ago that the King of Ireland was holding a
festival in the Hall of Tara.
"Put out all the fires," he had commanded his people. "Let no light be
seen till a blaze bursts forth from the hill of Tara."
Not one of his subjects would have dared to disobey the king's command.
You may judge, therefore, how surprised he was when he looked out into
the darkness and saw a light. It grew stronger and stronger every
moment. A great fire was blazing near by on the top of a hill!
Who could have dared to disobey the king? What was the meaning of the
fire? The Druid priest for whom the king sent in haste said:
"O king, if that fire is not put out to-night, it will never die in this
country."
Now it happened that the festival which the king and his people were
celebrating was held on the night before Easter Sunday. Few people of
Erin had at that time heard of Easter Sunday. They knew nothing of the
life of the Christ Child. They were Druids, and had a strange belief of
their own.
Their chief priests dwelt in the dark forests of oak-trees, and taught
their followers to worship fire as the symbol of the sun.
But a new teacher had come into their country. He had a message to the
people. He wished to tell them of the Christian religion and of Jesus,
who had lived and suffered and died to help all mankind.
The name of the new teacher was Patrick, and Scotland was his early
home. When he was sixteen years old, he was surprised by a band of
robbers. They made him their prisoner and took him with them to Ireland.
After he had been with them six months, he managed to get free and went
back to Scotland.
But he was carried off a second time, and again he escaped. After he
reached his own home once more, he said to himself, "I should like to
help the people of Ireland. I should like to tell them of Jesus and his
religion."
He began to study and prepare himself for teaching. At last he was made
a bishop.
After many years, he was able to go back to Ireland. It was what he had
long wished to do.
It was the eve of Easter Sunday when he lighted that great fire on the
hilltop and surprised the king by his daring.
"I will send for the man who kindled that fire. Let him come before me
at once," commanded the king.
Patrick was brought in haste, but he was not frightened in the least.
When the king and the princes, the nobles and the Druid priests were
gathered together, he told them he had come to Erin to put out the fires
of the Druids. He wished to stop the making of the pagan sacrifices in
which the people then believed. He had brought something better in their
place. It was the Christian religion.
What do you suppose the king replied?
He was very angry, of course. But still he asked Patrick to meet the
wise men of the country the next day and talk the matter over. Then he
could explain his belief to them.
On the next day he did meet them. He talked so well and so wisely that
many of the listeners thought he knew a great deal more than they did.
They became Christians then and there.
The king then gave Patrick the right to preach all over Ireland. As he
went from place to place, he spoke so well that all those who listened
to him felt his great power.
In a short time the whole of the people became Christians, and the
strange worship of the Druids came to an end.
Father Tom told Norah and her sister many wonderful stories of the life
of St. Patrick. He told of a spring of water he had visited. This spring
worked miracles.
It happened that St. Patrick and St. Bridget were one day taking a walk.
She said she was thirsty. St. Patrick struck the ground with his staff.
Water instantly began to bubble up through the earth, and a spring has
been there ever since.
Father Tom went on to tell of strange wriggling things called snakes. He
had seen them in other countries. They were something like big worms,
and were of different colours. The bite of some of them was poisonous.
"But we have none of them in our own beautiful Ireland," he said. "You
may thank the blessed St. Patrick for sending them out of this country."
Norah and Katie both shivered when they thought of the snakes. How good
St. Patrick was to drive the horrid creatures out of Ireland!
"There is a grand church in the city of Dublin called St. Patrick's
Cathedral. When you grow up, Norah, you must surely visit it," said the
kind priest, as he finished his story-telling. "It stands on the very
spot where St. Patrick himself once built a church. It is a fine
building, and its spire reaches higher up toward heaven than anything
you have ever seen made by men.
"But, my dear little children, your mother has prepared me a nice
luncheon. I must eat it, and then visit poor Widow McGee, who is very
ill."
A half-hour afterward, Father Tom had left the little home, and Mrs.
O'Neil was once more hard at work over her wash-tub. Norah was out in
the yard amusing baby Patsy.
"Mother, mother," she called, "Mrs. Maloney is on her way here. She has
just stopped at Mrs. Flynn's."
"Come in and get some petaties ready for her, Norah. I don't want to
stop again in my work." (Mrs. O'Neil pronounced it "wurruk.")
Mrs. Maloney lived in a lonely cabin about two miles away. You would
hardly believe it, but Norah's home was almost a palace beside Mrs.
Maloney's.
There was one little window, as she would have called it. It was really
only a hole in the wall. When heavy rains fell, the old woman stuffed it
with marsh-grass. The thatched roof had fallen in at one end of the
cabin. The furniture was a chair and a rough bedstead.
Poor old Mrs. Maloney! Once she had a strong husband and eight happy
children, but, one by one, they had died, and now she was old and
feeble, and had no one in the world to look after her.
Is it any wonder that the generous people whom she visited always had
something to give and a kind word to speak to her?
Every few days, she went from house to house, holding out her apron as
she stood in the doorway. She did not need to say a word. One kind woman
would give her a bit of tea, another a loaf of bread, a third a
cabbage, and a fourth a little butter.
In this way she was kept from starving, or from going to the workhouse,
which she dreaded nearly as much.
As Norah dropped the potatoes into her apron, the old woman blessed her
heartily. As she turned to leave, Mrs. O'Neil called after her to ask
how she got along in yesterday's bad storm.
"Sure and I was that feared I dared not stay in the cabin. It was so bad
I thought it would fall down on me shoulders. So I wint out and sat on
the turf behind it. I was wet indade when the storm was over."
"Too bad, too bad," said Mrs. O'Neil, in a voice of pity. "We must see
what can be done for you."
She did not forget. That very night she asked her husband if he could
not find time to mend the old woman's hut and make it safe to live in.
He promised her that as soon as the potatoes were hoed he would get his
friend Mickey Flynn to help him and they would fix it all right.
"Ah! Tim, Tim," said his wife, with her eyes full of tears, "of all the
eight children Mrs. Maloney has lost, there is none she grieves over
like her boy John, that went to Ameriky and was never heard of again.
"Maybe he lost his life on the way there. Maybe he died all alone in
that far-away land, with no kind friends near him. No one but God
knows."
Mrs. O'Neil crossed herself as she went on, "Think of our own dear girl
in Ameriky, and what might happen to her!"