The Cross and the Shamrock Part 16

"I can't promise to do what would displease G.o.d, and what my brother Paul and the priest told me not to do, sir," said the child.

"Don't you know, Eugene, the priest is a wicked man, and the Lord will punish you in a dark dungeon, darker than that room you are in, if you do not do what I tell you?" added the persecuting parson.

All this talk was lost on poor Eugene, who continued chanting his little hymn, or repeating the "Hail Mary" and "Holy Mary," for his father and mother's souls. In a word, after a series of whippings, confinements, and scoldings, after compelling him either to eat flesh on Friday, or fast all day without any other food, Parson Dilman, out of sheer shame, gave him up, and confessed himself vanquished by the Catholic child. He did not give him up for good, however, but, by way of making more sure of his victim, he sent him out into the country, to undergo the treatment of a more zealous and perfect disciplinarian than himself.

This pious Christian was no other than Shaw Gulvert, who was known to be a prodigy of sanct.i.ty, and had a world of zeal in reconciling obstinate heretics, or pagans, (as he called all but his own sect,) to the true standard of old Presbyterianism. He could boast of having most of the Old Testament by heart, making a prayer or "asking a blessing" of one hour's duration in the delivery; and by these virtues, and others he knew how to practise, every person who lived in his house, or came within the influence of his zeal, was sure "to get religion in no time."

'Tis true, he met some unlucky converts, and one or two very obstinate Papists whom he did not convert at all; but he soon despatched and discharged these latter. And he was especially mortified at the conduct of one Tipperary man, named Burk, who had the audacity to bring the priest to say ma.s.s in a house which the latter rented from him. The house has ever since been locked up, the pious Christian, Mr. Shaw Gulvert, preferring to let it rot and totter in ruin, rather than run the risk of having a Catholic tenant, who, like Burk, would be wicked enough to allow the priest inside the threshold.

This is the gentleman who is intrusted with the conversion of poor Eugene O'Clery, the Irish emigrant orphan; and he set about the work in right earnest fashion.

CHAPTER XX.

THE SAME, CONTINUED.

During the first two months, Eugene had comparatively but little to fear from the bigotry of his protector at Greenditch; but he was not indebted for this limited peace to the generosity of Mr. Shaw Gulvert. Indeed, that ignorant and cruel man dared not to execute his designs regarding the little confessor of the cross, while his two hired men, named Devlin, were in his house to enlighten his ignorance and reprimand his audacity. These two young men, brothers, were hired for a year by Gulvert, under the impression that they were native born; but after the contract between them was signed, and especially when Friday came on, Mr. Gulvert found he was _gulled_, and ran off to the parson, one Waistcoat, to see what was to be done. The young men told him not to be alarmed if he thought their presence would endanger his peace of mind, or that any dangerous consequences were to be apprehended from two such formidable soldiers of the Pope as they were; that he could easily get rid of them by paying them their year's wages, and they would go elsewhere to work; but that, while in his house, they insisted on perfect religious and mental independence. "And in future," said they, "we expect to see cooked and on the table, on Fridays and fast days, such food as we can partake of without scruple of conscience, or violating the rules of the Catholic religion, of which we are unworthy members."

"This is strange," said Gulvert; "why did you not tell me ye belonged to Rome, and were Irish?"

"Why did we not tell you? Because you did not ask us. And besides, boss, you hired us to work, and not to worship or believe according to your notion."

"I have never before kept a Papist to work for me," said he, drawing a heavy sigh.

"Well, boss, you can't know much about them, then. Perhaps you will be agreeably disappointed, and find that, if we do not join your very long prayers, we will _work_ as well as the most red-hot Presbyterian."

"I am much in doubt about that," said the boss.

"Why so, boss? Can we not handle the plough, use the scythe, or the cradle as well as if we were of your school of heresy?"

"I allow; but the good book says that 'men don't gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles;' so I am afraid my crops would not prosper, if religious men were not employed in my fields."

"O, you need not be alarmed, boss. G.o.d makes his sun to shine on the good and the bad; and though we Papists appear very wicked in your pious Presbyterian eyes, or in those of your amiable Methodist lady here, we will guaranty your crops will be as good as those of your neighbors, otherwise we will ask no pay. Ain't this fair?"

"Yes; but the good book, you know. The Bible says so plainly," answered the wife, "that men gather not grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles."

"Bless you, madam," said the elder Devlin, "you are mistaken in the meaning of that text, which has a figurative sense, and has no reference to corn, pumpkins, rye, or any other crop that your farm produces."

She shook her head in dissent to this speech, and in a most sanctified tone said, "Our minister, Dr. Waistcoat, always applied that text to the Papists when advising us against employing Romanist hired help."

"That only proved him a b.o.o.by, madam," said Devlin. "That text partly alludes to the Presbyterian sect, and partly to the Methodist, to which you belong."

"I would like to see how you can show that," said she, affecting great learning in such interpretations.

"As clear as mud, madam," resumed Devlin. "The Presbyterian religion is the 'thorn' tree on which no 'grapes' grow; for that sect reject the Holy Eucharist, containing the blood of Christ, of which the grape is a figure. It is full of thorns, for it persecutes and stings the head of the Savior in his representative the pope; and it produces no 'grape,'

no sacrament, no good works, no refreshing food or drink. Again: the 'thistle,' that produces no figs, is the Methodist religion; because, though it has plenty of stings and p.r.i.c.kles to wound the hand that touches it, the very a.s.s that goes the road can bite off its head. Or, in other words, though ye Methodists are malicious enough, all your malice is harmless to the church, and a very fool can refute or crop the most formidable of your arguments."

This queer _private interpretation_ disconcerted the _learned_ boss and his better half, and during the remainder of the service of the Devlins they did not hear much more about the religious interpretations of these professors of two contradictory sectarian creeds. The Devlins showed, not only to the boss and his wife, that they knew more about the Bible than themselves, but the minister, Mr. Waistcoat, was soon convinced, by conversation with them, that they were not to be duped. The consequence was, that the persecution to which Eugene was subjected was arrested for a time; and it was not till after the Devlins were paid off that this innocent child was again subjected to a series of punishments and brutal treatment without parallel in the records of modern persecution.

Every Friday that the young confessor refused, after the example of holy Eleazer, "to eat flesh, or go over to the life of the heathens," (2 Mac.

vi. 24.) he was compelled to go without food till the Sunday following.

He was flogged with a "black snake," till the blood flowed in rills, every time he refused going to meeting. He was compelled to stand out under rain and storm, scorching sun and chilling frost, during the time the family spent in prayer. Yes, tied with a thong to the pump by his little soft, white hands, the juvenile martyr had to bear the merciless violence of the elements, or consent to share in the blasphemous prayers of his persecutors! And, O G.o.d! worse than all, they robbed him of his rosary, and of the little bunch of shamrocks which were the only legacy of his dying mother to him, and which his sister Bridget and he took so much pains to keep alive in a small gla.s.s vase brought from Ireland. The "_Agnus Dei_" and "_Gospel_" which it is usual with Irish Catholic children to wear around the neck, were also forcibly stripped off his person and put into the stove.

All his much-prized memorials were now gone--his beads, or rosary, with the crucifix attached, to remind him of his Redeemer; his little vase of shamrocks, to remind him of Ireland and St. Patrick; and his "Gospel of St. John," and "Agnus Dei," to recall to his mind his dignity and obligations as a believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and his confidence in the Lamb of G.o.d who took away his sins. These const.i.tuted all the riches and treasure of Eugene, and of these he was plundered and stripped ere he was confined in the old deserted house that stood a few rods away from the dwelling house, and where soon all the persecutions he suffered were terminated.

One evening in October, the team of Mr. Gulvert broke loose from the post to which they were tied while he was at meeting, and, taking fright, rushed along at full speed on a narrow by-road by the river that ran through the village, till, coming in contact with the root of a tree that protruded from the road, the horses and wagon were precipitated over a fall of some twenty feet into the channel of the river beneath.

As the night was dark, and the road the animals took in their furious course was not known, it was not till next morning that the fate of the team was discovered, though not only Gulvert himself, but his hired help, including his servant girl and wife even, were out all night on the search for them.

If the most unexpected calamity had visited these _enlightened_ Christians--if two of their children, instead of two of their horses, had met with a sudden death,--their grief could not be more heartrending or despairing than on this occasion. The whole family was in an uproar.

There were wringing of hands, lamentable cries, and bewailings the most bitter, of the death of the best team in the town of Greenditch. The very children, down to the youngest of six years old, joined their tears to those of their parents and the adult members of the family. Not a wink was slept, not a morsel of victuals cooked, nor even a fire kindled in Mr. Culvert's house that night, and it was more than a week before the pious Mrs. Gulvert could be consoled or prevailed on to show herself down stairs. She was either really sick, or affected sickness, so that it was doubted whether or not she could survive the loss of her "darling team." O, what a loss was there! "The team would fetch two hundred dollars between two brothers, and it was only last month the new wagon cost seventy or eighty dollars; and all now gone."

"What a misfortune that I went out to hear that preacher at all on the Sabbath!" said Gulvert. "Had I remained at home, or walked down to meeting, I would be three hundred dollars richer to-day than I am now."

"Pa, where were the two Paddies, Pete and Bill, that they did not mind the team while you were in meeting?" said young Harry.

"Hang the cusses, Harry! They wanted to hear the preacher, too,"

answered the father.

"If I were you, pa," said little Libby, "I would keep the price of the hosses out of Pete and Bill's wages, the ugly fellows, that did not mind and keep the team from running away."

"That would be but sarving 'em right, Lib," said her mother, heaving a sigh.

"Yes, wife," said Gulvert, "that I would gladly do; but you know they are in my debt. I will be glad enough if they wait to work out the money that I have advanced them."

"You didn't _advance_ them money, did you, Gulvert?" said his wife.

"Yes, I did that," said he, "by the advice of that old fool Parson Waistcoat, who expected, as he succeeded in converting Pete and Bill Kurney, that he would also convert the rest of their friends, if they were out here from Popish Ireland."

"O Gulvert," said his better half, sobbing again anew, "you will kill me! I cannot live with you, that is the amount of it! How dare you, sir, lend money, or dispose, of my means, without first having consulted me!

I lay my death at your door!" she added, in a sharp, angry tone.

"Dear wife, don't blame me----"

"Away, old man!" she interrupted, "away, and leave me here to despair! I fear I will never again leave this bed; and if I find myself able, I shall never after spend a day in your house, but go back to my native state, and take out a bill of divorce against a man who knows nothing but to spend and squander the means of his family."

"O ma," said Libby, "do go away from father, the ugly fool, and I will go with you, won't I?"

"He ain't nothing else, sis," said she, "but a poor ugly fool, a shiftless, good-for-nothing old man. O, me! O, me! I could easily have known that this would be the case, from the dreams I had for two nights."

"I had a dream too, ma," said sis, who, though only going in her eighth year, was perfectly well versed in all the arcana of the science of interpretation. "I dreamed I saw you crying, ma," continued Lib, "and that there was blood on the stairs, and all way up garret, and that Shaw, my father, had spilt the blood all round."

"That's just it, sis," said her mother; "the blood signifies the death of our 'darling team;' my crying is on account of them; and Shaw, the fool, your father, was the cause of all this trouble, and that is why he appeared to you to spill the blood. My dream was not so clear as yours, but I could have guessed that something was going to be the matter."

Poor Gulvert was in great pain, in consequence, among other things, of the oft-repeated threat of his wife to separate from him; and, to give vent to his sorrowful reflections, he went up garret as quietly as he could, and folding himself up in several heavy "comforters," or padded quilts, he forgot his grief by falling into a sound sleep. Meantime Pete and Bill Kurney, the two Irish converts of Parson Waistcoat, seeing things in confusion, thought that now was the time for them to free themselves forever from the hypocrisy, as well as bad board, of Mr.

Culvert; and, to add to the grief of Mrs. Gulvert, next morning they were not to be had. These knowing fellows, hearing of Gulvert's character, put themselves in his way, and being questioned as to the nature of their doctrines, and finding them suitable to his taste, he hired them, and brought them home to work on his farm. They not only became "converts" during the first week in his house, but went to meeting regularly, where they were complimented on their highmindedness and independence in shaking off Popery, and got frequent chances to tell their experience. Besides their hypocrisy, these were thorough scoundrels; for they not only robbed their employer of the two hundred dollars which he had advanced them to bring out their parents from the old country, but in addition to this, and to the severity of the punishments which their apostasy occasioned Eugene, these consummate miscreants seduced the two sisters of Mr. Gulvert, one of them an old maid, whom they imposed upon by their lying representations and profane discourses. Here was a little more of the natural fruit of Mr. Gulvert's great zeal for his sect. His two hired men were gone, without having served one eighth of the two years they had agreed to work for the money advanced to them; both his sisters, _pious things_, yielding to temptation, were in a fair road to disgrace; and, to cap the climax of the unfortunate man's guilt and remorse, Eugene O'Clery, neglected in his prison in the old house, on the morning of All Saints' day, first of November, was found dead on its damp floor! Yes, this spotless, innocent, and almost infant but heroic confessor of Christ, after a course of worse than pagan persecution continued for more than two years, in the midst of legions of blessed spirits pa.s.sed out of this world, to add to the joy and glory of heaven by his heroic virtues. O ye mock philanthropists, ye lovers, on the lip, of freedom of conscience, where was your voice, where your sympathy, where your indignation, where your meetings, speeches, and resolutions, when this Catholic child, this dest.i.tute orphan, this n.o.ble son of Catholic Ireland, this spotless confessor and glorious martyr of Christ, was being sacrificed, like his divine Master, to the demon of cruel sectarianism? O, the blood of this innocent Abel, of this infant martyr, shed by the cruel Herod of Presbyterianism, will cry to Heaven for vengeance on your heads, and bring a curse on your hypocrisy and dissimulation.

The news of Eugene's death, communicated by the servant maid, created a sudden fear, but very little sympathy, in the brutal family of Mr.