The Tithe-Proctor Part 35

It was in the early part of the day of O'Driscol's last triumph on Duke Schomberg, that John Purcel went to discharge to a clergyman in the next parish, a commission of a similar nature to that just recited. He drove there on a car, accompanied by three policemen, avoiding, as well as he could, all narrow and dangerous pa.s.ses, and determined to return, if at all practicable, by a different road, for such of late was the practice of the family, when out on business. An it is, however, we shall leave him on his way and take the liberty of requesting our readers to antic.i.p.ate his arrival, for the purpose of getting a glimpse at the condition of those to whom he was carrying some slight means of mere temporary relief.

The clergyman, whose desolate habitation he was about to visit, had pa.s.sed about sixty winters, fifteen of which he had spent in that house, and thirty in the parish. That is to say, he had been fifteen years curate, and fifteen rector, without ever having been absent more than a month or six weeks at a time; and even these absences occurred but rarely. We remember him well, and with affection, as who of his survivors that ever knew him does not? He was tall, that is, somewhat above the middle height, and until pressed down by the general affliction which fell upon his cla.s.s and his family, he had been quite erect in his person. He was now bent, however, as by a load of years, and on his pale face lay the obvious traces of sorrow and suffering. But this was not all; whilst Dest.i.tution of the severest kind had impressed on that venerable countenance the melancholy exponent of her presence, Religion had also blended with it that beautiful manifestation of her unshaken trust in G.o.d; of patience, meekness, and a disposition to receive at his hands the severest dispensations of life, with a spirit of cheerful humility and resignation. Take a cursory glance at his face, and there, no doubt, you saw at once that sorrow and suffering lay.

Look, however, a little longer; observe the benign serenity of that clear and cloudless eye; mark the patient sweetness of that firm and well-formed mouth, and the character of heroic tranquility that pervades his whole person, and sanctifies his sorrows, until they fill the heart of the spectator with reverence and sympathy, and his mind with a sense of the dignity, not to say sublimity, which religion can bestow upon human suffering, in which it may almost be said that the creature gains a loving triumph over the Creator himself.

Every one knows that, in general, the clergy of Ireland, as a cla.s.s, lived from hand to mouth, and that the men who suffered most during the period of which we write were those whose livings were of moderate income. The favored individuals, who enjoyed the rich and larger inc.u.mbencies, the calamity did not reach, or if it did, only in a slighter degree, and with but comparatively little effect. The cessation, therefore, of only one year's income to those who had no other source of support on which to depend, was dreadful. In many instances, however, their t.i.thes had been refused for two, and, in some localities, for nearly three years, although the opposition to the payment had not for such a length of time a.s.sumed the fierce and implacable spirit which had characterized it during the last twelve months. These observations will now enable our readers to understand more clearly the picture with which we are about to present them.

On entering the house of this truly pious and patient pastor, the first thing that struck you was the sense of vacancy and desolation united. In other words, you perceived at a glance that everything of any value was gone. You saw scarcely any furniture--no clock, no piano, no carpeting, no mahogany chairs or tables, or at least none that were not of absolute necessity. Feather beds had gone, curtains had gone; and all those several smaller elegancies which it is difficult, and would be tedious, to enumerate here. Seated at a breakfast-table, in an uncarpeted parlor, was the clergyman himself, surrounded by his interesting but afflicted family. His hair, which, until within the last twelve months, had been an iron gray, was now nearly white, and his chin was sunk in a manner that had not, until recently, been usual with him. Servants, male and female, had been dismissed, and those whose soft, fair hands had been accustomed only to the piano, the drawing-pencil, or the embroidery-frame, were now engaged in the coa.r.s.est and commonest occupations of domestic life. Nor were they, too, without their honorable sacrifices of personal vanity and social pride, to the calamity that was upon them. Silks and satins, laces and gauzes, trinkets, unnecessary bonnets and veils, were all cheerfully parted with; and it was on such occasions that our friend the _Cannie Soogah_ became absolutely a kind of public benefactor. He acted not only in the character of a pedlar, but in that of a broker; and so generally known were his discretion and integrity throughout the country, that such matters were disposed of to him at a far less amount of shame and suffering than they could have been in any other way.

The family in question consisted of the father, his wife, four daughters, and three sons; the eldest daughter had been, for some months, discharging the duty of governess in a family of rank; the eldest son had just got an appointment as usher in a school near the metropolis; two circ.u.mstances which filled the hearts of this affectionate family with a satisfaction that was proportionately heightened by their sufferings.

About this period they expected a letter from their daughter; and on the morning in question their father had dispatched one of his boys to the post-office, with a hope of receiving it. The male portion of the family were the younger, with the exception of the eldest son, who was their third child. Their position was as follows: the old man sat at the end of a plain table, with his bible open before him--for they had just concluded prayer: his wife, a younger-looking woman, and faded more by affliction than by age, sat beside him, holding on her breast their third daughter--she who had been once the star of their hearth, and who reclined there in mute sorrow, her pale cheek and wasted hands giving those fatal indications of consumption in its last stage, which so severely tries the heart of parent or relative to witness. The other two girls sat opposite, one of them in tears, turning her heart-broken look now upon the countenance of her father and again upon that of her gentle, but almost dying sister, whilst her companion endeavored to soothe her little brother, who was crying for food; for the simple fact was, that they had not yet breakfasted, nor were the means of providing a breakfast under their roof. Their sole hope for that, as well as for more enlarged relief, depended upon the letter which they expected from their eldest daughter.

It is scarcely necessary to say that they all looked pale, sickly, and emaciated with suffering, and want of' the comfortable necessaries of life. Their dress was decent, of course, but such as they never expected to have been forced to wear so long. The crying boy was barefooted, and the young creature who endeavored to console him had thin and worn slippers on her tender feet, and her snowy skin was in more than one place visible through the rents of her frock. The old man looked at them, from time to time; and there might have been observed, notwithstanding the sweetness and placidity of his smile, a secret expression of inward agony--the physical and natural feelings of the parent and the man mingling, or rather struggling, with the great principle of dependence on G.o.d, without which he must at once have sunk down prostrate and hopeless.

"When," said the boy, "will Edward come from the post-office? Is there nothing at all in the house, mamma, that I could eat?"

"Hush! Frank," said his sister; "where's your generosity and your patience? Did we not all promise to think of papa and mamma before ourselves--yes, and of our poor Maria, too, who is so ill?"

"That is true," replied the boy, "but when I promised that, I wasn't so hungry as I am now. But, still, if I had anything to eat, I would give the best part of it to papa or mamma, or Maria, if she could eat it--that is, after I had taken one mouthful for myself. Oh will Ned never come from the post-office?"

"Mamma," said the sick girl, looking up into her mother's eyes, "I am sustained by one hope, and that is, that I will soon cease to be a burthen upon dear papa--my heartbroken papa and you. I am anxious to pa.s.s away to that blessed place where all tears shall be wiped from my eyes;" and as she spoke she raised herself a little, and quietly wiped one or two from them; and, she proceeded, "where the weary will be at rest. Alas! how little did we expect or imagine this great weight of suffering!"

"My darling child," said her mother, kissing her pale cheek, and pressing her more tenderly to her bosom, "you have ever been more solicitous for the comfort and well-being of others than you have been for your own; yet, well and dearly as we love you, how can we grudge you to G.o.d? It was He who gave you to us--it is He who is taking you from us; and what can we say, but blessed be His name?"

"My children," said the old man, "what would life be if there were nothing to awaken us to a sense of our responsibilities to our Creator?

If it presented to us nothing but one unshaken path of pleasure and ease--one equal round of careless enjoyment and indolent apathy? Alas!

my darlings, do not we, who are aged and have experience, know that it is those who are not taken by calamity and suffering who gradually fall into that hardness of heart, which prevents the spirit from feeling one of the most wholesome of truths--that indifference is danger, and that a neglect of the things which belong to a better life, and which serve to prepare us for it, is the great omission of those who are not called upon to suffer. You know, my children, that whom G.o.d loveth He chasteneth, and it is true. To those whom He graciously visits with affliction, it may be said that He communicates, from time to time, a new revelation of Himself; for it is by such severe but wholesome manifestations that He speaks to and arouses the forgetful or the alienated heart. Our calamity, however, and sufferings, possess more dignity, and are a.s.sociated with a greater work than that involved in the isolated sorrows of a single family. G.o.d is chastising a cold, corrupt, and negligent church, through the turbulence and outrage of the people. What has our church in this country been, within the memory of man, but a mere secular establishment, like the law or the army, into which men enter not from a lofty and pure sense of the greatness of their mission, but as a convenient means of securing an easy and indolent profession? I know not what our church might have been if left to herself; but this I do know, that for many a long year the unblushing iniquity of British policy has served only to corrupt and degrade her, and to make what ought to be the speaking oracle of G.o.d's truth, the consolation of the penitent sinner, the sure guide to the ignorant or the doubtful--yes, to make that Church, which ought to be a source of purity, of blessing, and of edification, to all--a system of corrupt rewards for political prost.i.tution, parcelled out to meet the sordid spirit of family alliances and unG.o.dly bargains; or, in other words, to turn her into a ma.s.s of bribes--a base appendage to the authority of the British minister, who used her as the successful medium of at once enslaving and demoralizing the country, instead of elevating and civilizing it. It is for this great neglect of national duty, and for permitting ourselves to be imbued with the carnal and secular spirit, which has led us so far from practical truth and piety, that the church is now suffering. We have betrayed our trust, and been treacherous both to G.o.d and man. For my own part, my children, I am glad that I and mine have been counted worthy to suffer in this cause. We are now pa.s.sing through the furnace, but we shall come out purified. Our grossness shall be purged away, and the proud spirit of mammon burned out of us. But you know that G.o.d, my dear ones, can accomplish a double purpose by the same means. Our church shalt be exalted and purified, and her ministers prepared for a higher and holier mission than that in which they have hitherto been engaged. She shall awaken to a sense of her great responsibility; a new spirit shall be created within her; a living energy shall characterize those who have slumbered under the unholy shadows which she has cast around her, and those who think that they are smiting her unto death shall find that they have been made only the instruments in G.o.d's hands for the purification of her body and the regeneration of her spirit. Charles," he added, turning to the boy, who still wept, although as furtively as he could, "bear up, my child: Ned, you may rest a.s.sured, will make as little delay as possible, and I hope he will bring us relief."

"Mamma," said the invalid, looking up tenderly into her face, "will you--oh! no, not you, mamma--Emily will--a mouthful of drink, Emily dear, and let it be pure water, Emily; I think it agrees with me best."

"Alas, my darling!" exclaimed her mother, wiping away a few quiet tears, "I have nothing else to give you."

"Well, mamma, but you know I like it very much."

"Precious child," replied her mother, again tenderly pressing her to her bosom; "we all know your goodness, and the reluctance with which you ask anything that you fear might occasion us trouble. Dearest life, it will be the memory of these glimpses of angelic goodness that will wring our hearts when you are----" She paused, for the words had been uttered unconsciously.

"Yes," said her father, "they will console us, my child, and make your memory smell sweet, and blossom from the very dust. You have probably heard of the beautiful sentiment so exquisitely delineated by the great painter--'I too have been in Arcadia,'--and will it not be something to us to be able to say,--'We too have an angel in paradise!'"

Her sister brought her a cup of cold water, with which, after thanking her with a sweet smile, she merely wet her lips. "Alas! I am very troublesome to you all, but I shall not long--"

"Darling sister," said Emily, tenderly kissing her, "do not speak so; you are too good, and ever were so. Ah! Maria," she exclaimed, gushing into tears, "is it come to this at last!"

The sick girl placed her hand affectionately upon her cheek, and said--"Dear, dear sister, how I love you! Oh! how I love you all! and papa, my dear papa, how I pity you in your sorrow!"

"Thanks, my darling, I know that your heart is pervaded and sustained by all tenderness and affection; and indeed it is a consolation that since calamity has come upon us, it has fallen upon a family of love--of love to which it only gives greater strength and tenderness. This is a great blessing, my children, and we ought to feel deeply thankful for it. But, at the same time, it matters not what we suffer, we must allow nothing in this world of trial to shake our trust in G.o.d. Here, however, is our poor little messenger. Well Edward, any letter?"

"Oh, yes, papa; there is one from Matilda. I know her writing."

He then handed the letter to his father, and immediately going over to his sick sister, he placed a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter in her hand, adding, "The head-constable of police gave it to me; I would have refused it though--but for Maria."

"Did you eat none of it yourself, Edward?" asked Maria.

"No," he replied, "I thought mamma might make you up some light nice thing out of it."

"But I cannot eat it, my dear Ned; divide it as you wish, but thank you, darling, from my heart, for thinking of me."

He then would have shared it as equally as he could among them, but to himself and his brother it was left; the others, from a feeling which may easily be understood, declined to partake of it.

We do not, of course, give this as a general picture of the distress which was felt; but we do give it as a picture which was by no means rare among the established clergy at the period of which we write. We know, from the best authority, that the privations of the time were frequently so severe as to find many families without food to eat.

Their daughter's letter was touching and simple, but unfortunately it contained, not the remittance they expected; a circ.u.mstance which, in their condition, was such a disappointment as cannot well be described.

She stated that, in consequence of the absence from home, for some days, of the family with whom she lived, it was out of her power to send them the full amount of her first quarter's salary as she had intended, or any money at all, as they knew she had none except her salary to send.

She wrote, however, lest they might think or suppose for a moment that she had forgotten them. She sent her warmest love and affection to them all, especially to Maria, whom she hoped her letter would find better.

Here she mentioned them all by name, and concluded by saying, that the moment the family returned home, she would remit to her dear papa the amount of her whole quarter's salary.

The youngsters all burst into tears, the fact being that they had not tasted food for more than eighteen hours. The mother, worn and pale with anxiety and distress, turned sorrowfully to her husband and said: "Charles, what is to be done? must our children die? must they perish with famine?"

"Send Charles over to M'Mahon's," replied her husband; "he is poor, it is true, but he is our next neighbor, and from him, if he will oblige us, relief will come soonest. Charles, go, my child, and ask Con M'Mahon if he will be good enough to send me a stone or two of potatoes for a few days; and I will feel obliged--your brother, poor child, is fatigued by his journey to the post-office, and from other causes--or being the elder I would make him go--if M'Mahon obliges me, tell him that I will thank him to send them, as I have no messenger to fetch them. I have always found poor M'Mahon respectful and neighborly, and I am certain he will not refuse us."

We shall not detail the distressing and melancholy conversation, in which they were engaged until the child's return. It is enough to say that, although he met with no refusal, the expected relief was not sent.

"Well, my child," inquired his anxious father, "what reply did he give?"

"He said, papa," returned the child, "that he would give you a whole sack of potatoes with pleasure, but that, to send them in the open day, would be more than his life is worth--he dare not do it."

The old man looked up, then clasping his hands together, and glancing at his unhappy family, a few bitter tears rolled down his cheeks.

"But," added the boy, "he said he would bring over as many as he could carry, about twelve o'clock to-night."

"Well," continued his father, "that is civil; and I believe, as to the danger, he is right. But, in the meantime, what is to be done? I fear all the available sources of relief have been already exhausted, with the exception of heaven alone--in which, my children, we must not permit anything to shake our trust. I am feeble, but yet I must go forth and try to secure some food for you, my poor famishing family: hold up, then, my dear children, even for a little, for certain I am that G.o.d will provide for us still."

He was, accordingly, upon the point of going out, when John Purcel entered; and as the object of his visit is already known to the reader, we shall leave to his imagination the sense of the relief which it afforded.

This now is not an overdrawn picture of particular cases--and they were numerous--which occurred during the period of what was termed the t.i.the rebellion.

The circ.u.mstance of the message to M'Mahon's, however, was the cause of a scene which we could not possiby omit, in a work treating of this peculiar and most distressing crisis. As the boy Charles was on his way to M'Mahon's--and this he mentioned to the family afterwards--he was met, he said, by a gentleman dressed in rusty black, mounted upon a strong, coa.r.s.e horse; and who, after looking at him with a good deal of surprise, said--"What is your name, my fine fellow?" and on hearing it he asked him where he was going. The child, who had been trained to nothing but truth; mentioned at once the object of his message; upon which the gentleman in question, after having heard it, thrust his hands into his smallclothes pocket, and then drew them out with an air of impatience, exclaiming--"Bad luck to it for poverty--it's the curse o' the counthry." Now this worthy priest, for such he was, had not been many weeks in the parish at the period of his meeting with the little boy; and it so happened, that his residence was within about a quarter of a mile of the glebe house. He was, besides, one of the few who had given, upon more than one occasion, rather unequivocal manifestations of violent opposition to the whole system of t.i.thes. As a matter of course, he was the last individual from whom anything like sympathy for those who suffered in such a cause might be expected. Much of the same character was M'Mahon, to whom the distressed parson had applied for the humble loan of food. He a.s.sailed, in fact, the whole Establishment, and took both an active and conspicuous part in the excitement which then agitated the country. He joined the crowds, vociferated and shouted among them at the top of his lungs, and took the liberty of laying down the law on the subject, as he termed it: that is to say, of swearing that one stick or stone of their dirty Establishment should not be left upon another, but that the whole bobbery of it must be sent to blazes--where it would all go yet, plaise G.o.d. Of course his neighbor, the parson, was by no means cognizant of this violence on the part of M'Mahon, or he would never have thought of applying to him, even under the severest pressure of absolute dest.i.tution.

Having premised thus much concerning these two individuals, we request our readers to accompany us to the house of the Rev. Anthony Casey, and to suppose that it is a little after the hour of eleven o'clock at night. The worthy gentleman and his curate had just seated themselves in his snug, but humble little parlor, where a pleasant turf fire was beginning to get somewhat dim, when the following dialogue occurred between them:

"Pettier," said Father Anthony to his curate, who had just returned from a sick call, "you found the night bitther, I think?"

"It is very cold, indeed, sir."

"You have had a long ride of it upon that mountain road, without even a bush to shelther you."

"It is not less than fourteen miles I think," replied the curate, "and a cold, desolate road as I ever travelled."

"You have read your office?"