The Cross and the Shamrock Part 10

"It's all priestcraft," said his wife.

"I don't know, Sarah, what craft it is, but I wish our ministers learned a little of the same craft; for they are fast losing all influence over the minds of the people, and especially over that of the youth. That we can all see."

"That's because people are daily getting worse," said this female philosopher.

"Worse! Then whose fault is it that they are? What have we ministers for, but to prevent this state of things? There are six of them in the small village of S----, and it can't be beat in the Union for blacklegs and rowdies. Would we have so many wild, irreligious young men, and women, too, if, instead of six preachers, we had six Catholic priests? I would like to see one of your young ones show such signs of a superior mind and training, such manliness and fort.i.tude, as that Irish Catholic lad, Paul, down at Prying's. They have had all the ministers within fifty miles of you to convert him, but they could no more move him than they could Mount Antoine. In fact, he beat them all to pieces in Scripture and argument. Take no more pains about religion, wife," said the honest Yankee; "let Anne alone. I won't have her disturbed any more on the subject. If there be any religion on earth, those very people have it whom you want to bring round to the exact pattern of your favorite minister's manner of doubting. It's ridiculous, wife," said he, rising, and calling his men to the fields; "it's ridiculous to try to convert these Catholics, who appear to have some religion, to the countless systems of NO RELIGION that are so numerous on all sides around us. I say it's ridiculous," said he, departing.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TEMPTER AT THE WOMAN.

It was arranged among the Pryings and their advisers, one day in August, that, as Amanda said Paul was an incorrigible young man, he should be sent off to the State fair of Vermont, and, in the meantime, a certain "true blue" Presbyterian minister, named Grin.o.ble, should try his hand at converting Paul's little sister Bridget. It was, some thought, wrong to begin with Paul, as all experience, but especially scriptural testimony, taught that temptation was more likely to succeed when woman was the subject or the instrument. So thought Parson Grin.o.ble; and, with true serpent wisdom, he concluded that it was through the woman, the weaker s.e.x, that, in this instance, Popery was to be conquered. Besides, this old hand at proselytism read somewhat of the epistles of St. Paul, and read there of the success of his predecessors in unbelief in seducing "silly women," and ensnaring their confiding souls within the meshes of their wily nets. So thought Mr. Grin.o.ble, and he began to act on it on the day in question, by going into the kitchen and addressing himself to Bridget, as she was peeling apples for cooking, in the following manner:

"Come here, my dear, and shake hands," said his dominieship to the girl.

She walked over shyly, holding the knife in one hand, and stretching forward for the other.

"Sit down here beside me, on the settle, my dear."

"I must do what 'Mandy ordered me, sir," she said, excusingly.

"Oh, don't you fear Amanda," he said; "I will be your security, my little woman, that she won't be displeased. Dear me, what nice hair and purty curls you have! and such beautiful teeth! Don't you think Miss Amanda is jealous of your charms? eh? Why do you turn away your head, my pet?"

"I don't like such talk, sir," she answered. "My Prayer Book, in the 'Table of Sins,' says it is a sin to listen to praise or flattery."

"Well said, my little lady," said the tempter. "You are right, Bridget; I was only trying you. I do not wish you to sin. You know I am the minister. I love you, and wish to see you a good Christian," said he, caressing her.

"I thank you, sir," was her answer.

"Now, my little good one, I want to tell you some news. I have a message for you,--a letter from a friend."

"Please show it, sir," she said, impatiently; "perhaps it is from my uncle, in Ireland, to whom Paul often wrote, but never got an answer back."

"No, my dear, it is from your father," said the tempter.

"My father is dead, sir," she quickly rejoined. "It can't be from him, anyhow, G.o.d rest his soul."

"It is from your Father in heaven,--behold it!" said he, in a dramatic accent, and pulling out of his breast-pocket a small octodecimo Bible.

"Queer letter carrier, and purty heavy letter," grinned a young fellow, who was sitting by, waiting for the return of the boss to employ him.

"Christ sent you this by me," said the dominie, presenting the Bible.

"It will teach you the knowledge of the Lord, and the true spirit of his gospel."

"Never knew before that the Lord kept a post-office," said the young Celt; "but I'm sure he never sent the like of you to be letter-carrier,--too slow, too stupid, entirely, entirely; and not very honest, maybe."

"I am not addressing you, sir," said the parson, gruffly. "How do you like that, Bridget?" said he, plying his arts.

"It is very nicely bound, sir," said she; "but I dare not take it without acquainting my brother Paul."

"Now, my little favorite," said the representative of the serpent, "if your uncle at home left you all his property, would you not like to be able to read the _will_, or would you wait for Paul's leave to read a doc.u.ment by which you inherited so much wealth?"

"Perhaps not, sir," she answered, "particularly if he did not forbid me to do so."

"Very well, this is the will, the testament of G.o.d to all men, to me, to you. Now, Bridget, learn this will, read it, study its contents, without consent of priest or brother. Don't you see how proper this advice is?" said he, thinking he had her little reasoning powers conquered.

"Yes, old fellow," said the young man at the table; "but if that will was disputed, which would you do,--submit it to an able lawyer, or go into court yourself without advice or counsel? You surely would fee a lawyer, if money or property was at stake. Well, you '_omadawn_,'" said our young stranger, "don't you see that, though that Bible is the will, the devil, and his small heretical attorneys--Luther, Calvin, Wesley--dispute the will, and the Church is the able advocate, and judge, too, that will conquer the devil, and put to shame his agents, and secure the stake, which is heaven, and the salvation of the soul?

Let the child alone," said he, boldly, "as you see she doesn't want your biblical pills, or, 'be the tinker that mended _Fion-vic Couls' pot_,' I will turn you out of doors, if I were to hang for it after. Let the child alone this minute," said he, firmly.

"Who are you, sir?" said the indignant parson, turning to view his antagonist. "How dare you interrupt me when I am not addressing you?"

"I am an Irishman and a Catholic," said he; "and furthermore, if you wish to know my name, it is, sir, Murty O'Dwyer, Tipperary man and all."

The reader will recollect the rollicking young attendant who drove Father O'Shane in the snowdrifts from Vermont, a specimen of whose oratory we have given in a preceding chapter. The antagonist of Parson Grin.o.ble was no other than the same young man. He had rambled up to this neighborhood in search of work, and hearing that Mr. Prying was in need of a hay hand, he waited his return from the Vermont State fair.

The minister Grin.o.ble returned to the parlor to report progress to Amanda, and to represent the controversial rencontre which he had with O'Dwyer, while Murty learned with wonder and indignation from Bridget, that they were the children which cost Father O'Shane so much vain search, and that they were kept in continual annoyance by all sorts of male and female religious quacks and mountebanks, all bent on the work of perversion. "Oh, thunder and age!" said he; "and ye are widow O'Clery's children, G.o.d rest her soul! What a murthur Father O'Shane could not find ye out before he died! The Lord have mercy on him."

"We have heard he died," said Bridget. "Is it long since, sir?"

"Almost two years. He published ye in the Boston _Pilot_, and all the newspapers. He even offered a reward for yer discovery. Oh, _mille murther_! what a pity I did not know ye were so near home!"

"I suppose uncle wrote to him, and sent us money to take us home again?"

added pensive Bridget.

"Money!" said the disinterested young man; "what money? I would give all I earned since I came to this queer country myself to have ye found out. We all thought ye were lost, drowned, or killed on the railroad cars. I am glad I have found ye out; ye will have to leave right off. I will take ye away myself to-morrow."

"Oh, no, sir!" said Bridget; "we can't leave this till our time is served out or our board paid,--two dollars a week for nearly three years. The priest, not long since, came here to see if he could get my brother and me off, but they told him they would not let us go. And besides that, they insulted his reverence by telling him, if he dared to come to try to kidnap us, they would tar and feather, or shoot him, the Lord save us."

"I wish to G.o.d I was present," said Murty; "I would settle bread on some of them; that I would, and no mistake," said he, bringing his clenched fist down on the table, "if I heard them insult the minister of Christ in any shape or form. Oh, America! America!" said he, in an undervoice, "I am deceived in you. I thought you were a second paradise, where all was peace, and comfort, and justice, and prosperity, and true liberty.

But alas! I find all my ideas of your character erroneous and false. All the crimes of the old world are not only here, where we thought the very soil was virgin pure and unstained, but here in the most odious forms.

The poor at home were naked, and hungry, and ground; but most of them were _innocent_, and _an innocent man is not entirely miserable_. The poor here, besides their poverty and wretched slavery, working eighteen out of the twenty-four hours, are almost all wicked in addition. The crimes in the old country, that aristocratic inst.i.tutions kept up in the inaccessible palaces of the rich,--like the panther's den on the summit of yonder mountain,--here are familiar to the lowest and vulgarest of the populace. In the old country, the few and the rich were unjust, cruel, wicked; it was so in Ireland. Here the vices of the few are ingrafted on the many, and, like the small-pox, they do not become weaker, but stronger, by universal propagation. I wish I never saw you, America," said he, musing, his head resting against the wall; "I wish I was in the grave with my two sisters and mother, rather than here to witness the slavery, corruption, and vice of America." The remainder of his musings were lost in the sighs and emotions that proceeded from his manly bosom.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FRUITS OF THE CROSS.

Paul was now a free man, the term of apprenticeship having expired. It was his right now, according to the terms of the implied contract, not only to receive support and clothing, but wages; and Mr. Prying was very willing to keep him in the house and give him a man's wages; but this conflicted with Amanda's plan and that of her advisers; consequently, Paul was reluctantly obliged to part with the society of his sister Bridget, who had yet a part of her term to serve, and to look out among the neighboring farmers for a situation. This he soon found in a gentleman's family named Clarke, who was very glad to receive such a modest and intelligent young man into his family. This Mr. Clarke was not a farmer by profession, but a lawyer, and editor of a daily journal in the capital of Vermont, and only spent a few days in the summer and fall with his family at the farm. Paul's chief occupation was to attend young Master Clarke in his sports of fishing, fowling, and riding on horseback. The duties of his present situation afforded Paul not only time and leisure to keep up his accustomed religious exercises, but, in addition, he was able to revise what he had previously studied, and to add considerably to his stock of useful knowledge. The equal terms and familiarity in which he stood in his relation with his young employer afforded him an opportunity of revising Virgil, Sall.u.s.t, Lucian, and other cla.s.sical authors, the use of which he was so long obliged to discontinue.

Mr. Clarke was delighted when he learned from his son that Paul knew Greek and Latin much better than his former teacher in the academy. And this information he knew to be correct, from the fact that he found his son had learned more during vacation, in company with Paul, than he did during the whole year before in college. He therefore advanced Paul's wages by one-third, and prolonged his son's stay in the country beyond the usual period. This generous and kind-hearted man was also sensibly affected when Paul, at his request, related how he came to know Latin; how he was nephew of the grand vicar of Kil----; how he had spent five years in college; how his father was obliged to emigrate with his family; how he had died on the voyage; how they were robbed of a thousand pounds; how his mother sunk under her trials; how he and his brethren were kidnapped out hither; how the priest of T---- had advertised for them; and how, "I suppose," said he, "they gave us up in despair; thinking, probably, that we were lost in some of the late steamboat disasters; but here we are yet, thank G.o.d!"

Mr. Clarke, with the instinct of a true-hearted Yankee, immediately saw into the snare laid for the faith of the young orphans; and he thanked his G.o.d mentally that he had come to the knowledge of these facts, for he was the man to expose and reprobate such foul play. "I now well remember, Paul," said he, "the advertis.e.m.e.nts respecting you and your brothers and sister. I shall see to this business, I promise you. In the meantime, be you and Joe good friends. Don't spend too much time at fishing and gunning, but study a good deal. Good-by, Joe, my son.