GETTING THE MOTHER'S BLESSING.
When the priest departed from the precincts of "Oil Mill House," in
company with the impatient messenger that required his services in the
country, after a few words of encouragement and advice spoken to Paul,
Bridget, Patrick, and Eugene,--for so were widow O'Clery's children
named,--they returned to the bedside of their dying mother. Little
Bridget was the first to observe on the small bench by the bedside the
money left there by Father O'Shane.
"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."