"Considerate, et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus."
"Attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow."
LAM. JER.
There was a complete suspension of the ordinary occupations on the farm
of Gulvert for near ten days, owing to the trials with which his family
was visited. The wife was still confined to her room, and continually
threatening her husband with the divorce, who, on his part, had no heart
to conduct the necessary work of his farm, he felt so dispirited at the
loss of his team and of the money out of which "his converts" had
tricked him. Add to this that there were very ugly rumors going the
round of the neighborhood in reference to the ill usage the little Irish
orphan met with. While he was living and in suffering, there was nobody
to sympathize with him or to say a word in his favor; but now, when that
sympathy could do him no good, according to the custom of modern
philanthropy, there was an abundance on hand, and the conduct of Shaw
Gulvert, as the agent of Parson Waistcoat, was censured by a thousand
tongues. This is characteristic of Protestant charity: when one is dying
of hunger, or forced to beg a crum of bread, she shuts her ears, and
points to the prison or poorhouse, as the only proper retreat for
whoever is compelled to commit the _sin_ of mendicity; but no sooner
does the victim of her own neglect or misdirected benevolence die, no
sooner is he out of the reach of all human relief, than the heralds of
Protestant charity gather round his tomb, to proffer their assistance,
aid, and liberality--like the Jews building the tombs of the prophets
put to death by their own malice.
This was the case in the instance here related. Some were for having the
body of the martyred Eugene exhumed, to see if there were any marks of
violence visible. Some proposed to raise a collection to have a monument
raised on his grave, and all unanimously condemned Gulvert's cruelty to
the "dear little child." What principally turned the current and force
of public opinion against Gulvert was, that he was impudent enough to go
and demand restitution of Parson Waistcoat, of the money that, on
account of his recommendation, he advanced to the runaway converts. And
the parson, to be revenged on Gulvert, on next meeting day called on the
congregation for their prayers, to save said Gulvert from the relapsing
gulf into which he had fallen. The parson, enraged at being held
accountable for the money lost by Gulvert, through his own "want of
godliness," as he termed it, and incensed on account of Gulvert's
declaration of deserting his church, held him up continually as a stray
sheep, and already, if not lost, far advanced on the broad way to
perdition. In the midst of this excitement, the progress of public
feeling against Gulvert was suddenly checked by the following
afflicting and sudden accidents.
The wife of Gulvert, being a Boston lady, of course was altogether in
favor of the Sons of Temperance; but, by some means or other, she
happened always to keep a little in the house for medicinal purposes. It
was well known, among the well informed, that this lady, having been
"jilted," or, in other words, deceived, by a merchant in her native
city, who promised to marry her, was subject to frequent melancholy
attacks, and on these occasions especially did she make use of
"medicinal brandy." She suffered from one of these periodical attacks
now, and, consequently, the medicinal glass was always within her reach.
On the small stand by her bed stood two tumblers, one containing the
medicinal "eau de vie," and the other was half full of vinegar.
She ordered Jane, on this fatal day, to pour a little laudanum into that
tumbler that contained the vinegar, to see if, by applying it to her
temples, it would not allay the terrible headache which she said had
tormented her. Instead of pouring the poison into the vinegar glass,
where would the Scotch Abigail empty the cruet but into the tumbler with
the brandy in it? Her mistress soon after quaffed off the liquor into
which the poisonous drug had been poured, and in an hour after she was a
lifeless corpse. This was not all; for, on the day of the funeral, young
Harry, Mr. Gulvert's son and heir, in order to show his devotion to his
beloved parent's remains, was all the morning busy in collecting flowers
with which to deck the room where she was laid in state, and,
attempting to reach a flower that grew out of the side of a deep,
deserted well, in the lower end of the garden, the little fellow fell in
and was drowned. "When the feet of them who buried" Mrs. Gulvert "were
at the door," they found out the corpse of Harry was at the bottom of
the well. It was a long time before any body could be induced to go into
that well, as well because it was very deep as on account of the
prevalent report in the neighborhood that Gulvert's father had killed a
negro and cast him into the well, with heavy weights attached to him.
After several unsuccessful attempts to raise the body, they at length
succeeded, by the aid and undaunted courage of a young man who was just
after riding up to the crowd, and who, on learning the cause of such a
gathering, generously volunteered to go into the well, notwithstanding
the hints he received from some of the bystanders that the "nigger" was
at the bottom. In a few minutes Paul O'Clery was at the bottom of the
"enchanted well," and, amid shouts of "Bravo!" and "Well done!" almost
instantly returned, with the lifeless body of little Harry in his arms.
But what's this that he finds tangled in the drowned child's hands? It
is surely the beads of his beloved mother, which she bequeathed as her
dying legacy to his youngest brother Eugene. How did it get into the
well? He trembled visibly as it struck his mind that possibly Eugene
might have fallen in too.
"Are you sure there is nobody else in?" said he to the bystanders.
"No, there ain't nobody else in," said Gulvert; "all we have left, now,
are around here."
"And how came this relic to get into the well?" said Paul. "I think I
saw this before."
"That? O, that's a toy that a young Papist orphan which we had used to
say his prayers on."
"And where is that orphan now? O, tell me, where is he? For God's sake
tell me, where is my beloved brother?" exclaimed Paul.
"He is dead."
"O, don't mock me, but tell me the truth. I assure you I am a brother of
the orphan child, Eugene O'Clery. What has become of him?"
"We do not joke, my young gentleman," said an aged man in the crowd.
"Your brother, the orphan you allude to, died suddenly on the night of
the first of this month, and was interred in yon mound on the second of
the month."
"O Lord! O Lord! grant me patience. O my brother! O Eugene! O beloved
child of our hearts! what has become of you? Did you die on your bed, or
meet with an accident? or how did these beads you loved so well come
into this horrid, pestiferous well? O, woe is me! Why did I ever let you
out of my sight? Why did I not remain in servitude and slavery, rather
than let you into the care of the cruel, false-hearted stranger? O
villanous deceiver! O infamous prevaricator! Parson Dilman, why did I
listen to your seductive promises?"
The reader may imagine, for we cannot adequately describe, the burden
of woe and grief which took possession of the soul of Paul when he found
that his darling brother, on whose account he suffered so much anxiety
and came such a distance, was gone forever from his sight. And when he
learned how he died; how, after countless tortures, by whippings, by
hunger, and by confinement, the delicate martyr of Christ was allowed to
perish on the damp floor of an old, deserted house; how he was deprived
of the memorials of his faith and country; how he was buried with as
little ceremony, and as much indifference, as if he had been an
irrational animal,--when he learned all these circumstances from the two
Irish cotters, Lee and Twohy, it took him to pray continually not to
yield to feelings of hatred and revenge.
A circumstance related to him, however, by the peasants, whose
hospitality Paul consented to avail himself of for a few days, served to
reconcile him to Eugene's fate, and to inspire him with the most exalted
sentiments of forgiveness and good will towards the murderers of his
brother. Every night since Eugene's burial a bright column of light was
seen rising from his tomb, and terminating in the heavens above, where
the column became gradually wider, till it became like a wide circle of
glory, similar to that which appears around the moon on a winter's
night, when the atmosphere is at the snowing temperature. In the centre
of the circle appeared a beautiful cross of most perfect proportions,
and so bright in the bright circle that it was perfectly dazzling, and
the sight could with difficulty be fixed on it for an instant.
This phenomenon was seen by the two Irish cotters frequently, and all
the neighbors around had observed the lower part of the column, but
concluded that it was phosphorus, which, they said, from some cause or
other, either the nature of the soil or from the bodies interred there,
ascended to the clouds, attracted by some atmospheric body there. Paul,
too, was blessed with this happy sight, but without indulging in the
gratification of a too curious or protracted observation of this vision;
and being fully convinced that it was no phosphoric combination of
natural phenomena, concluded to take off the body of his beloved
brother, and have it interred, in a Christian manner, in the same
consecrated tomb in which the remains of his father reposed. He was also
fortunate enough, by the payment of a liberal bonus, to succeed in
raising the body of his mother, whose tomb he was able to find out, by a
measurement which, on the day of her interment, he had made, and from
certain stones placed by him at the head of her coffin.
Thus, by the piety of a son and a brother, were the three bodies of
these members of this pious and renowned family united again after a
temporary separation. "Lovely and comely in their life, even in death
they were not divided." In a Catholic cemetery, in the vicinity of New
York, can now be seen a beautiful monument of Italian marble, with the
names, ages, and places of the nativity of Arthur O'Clery, and his wife
Cecilia, and their son Eugene, inscribed in a neat cruciform slab in one
of the faces of the monument. In another slab are carved, in "bold
relief," the little vase of shamrocks brought by the family from
Ireland, together with the _Rosary and Cross_, suspended from the hand
of the virgin holding the child. On the third square of the tomb is
conspicuous a figure of Erin, holding in her right hand a crucifix, and
with the left hand pointing it to her children, with the words, "_Sola
spes nostra, ubi crux ibi patria_"--"This is our only hope; wherever the
cross is honored, call that your country."
After having seen to the proper execution of all things in reference to
the tomb of his family, Paul O'Clery, with a heavy heart, returned to
acquaint his little brother Patrick and sister Bridget about the fate of
Eugene. He did not forget, however, before quitting the last
resting-place of his parents and brother, to have the grave fenced round
with a neat iron rail; and fixing all inside the fence in the form of
two pretty flower beds, he, with his own hands, carefully planted the
roots of the shamrocks which were brought from Ireland, and which he
luckily found in Mr. Gulvert's kitchen garden, where they had been
thrown, after having been taken from Eugene. And to this very day these
shamrocks flourish--neither frost, nor cold, nor parching heat, nor
inclement seasons being able to retard their growth; as if their verdure
and flourishing vegetation were supplied from the pure and genuine
Irish clay to which the bodies of the three O'Clerys have been long
since reduced.
Paul now saw his people reduced by more than one half. When they left
Ireland, they were seven in number; now they were only three. He was too
well trained in Christian resignation, however, to repine at what
evidently appeared to him the dispensation of Heaven. After the example
of holy Job, therefore, he praised the Lord, to whom, if he deprived him
of his good parents, he was also indebted for being placed under the
care of such patterns of virtue. These several trials, and the
consequent distractions in which they involved him, made him more
disgusted than ever with the world; and his desire to consecrate himself
to God in the holy priesthood became stronger and stronger every day.
The Almighty seemed to have some special mission in view for this
spotless child of St. Patrick, when his mercy had conducted him, like
the children in the fiery furnace, so early through such meritorious
trials and sufferings, as it requires the most faithful correspondence
with grace to endure, and it falls to the lot of a few to encounter.
The end of all his difficulties and trials had now arrived. From this
day forward the breeze that bore him along in his ecclesiastical voyage
became fairer and fairer, till, advancing from virtue to virtue, and
honor to honor, he became the glory of the church, and exercised such
influence on the destinies of his countrymen and of those committed to
his charge, that he might adopt the language of Joseph to his brethren:
"God hath sent me before you into Egypt, that you may be preserved on
the earth, and have _food to live_." (Gen. xlv. 7.) But this is
anticipating what naturally should have its place at the conclusion of
our narrative.