The Cross and the Shamrock eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 233 pages of information about The Cross and the Shamrock.

The Cross and the Shamrock eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 233 pages of information about The Cross and the Shamrock.
to which he unquestionably aspired.  Several times during the two months the destitute widow and her family were reduced to penury and sickness.  Our worthy master was apprised of their condition by the neighbors; but he always answered that the law did not allow him to spend any more, just now; that these emigrants ought to remain at home; that they had no right to this country; that he heard a very godly minister foretell last year, at camp meeting, that the Romanists would yet have this country; that too many were coming by millions; that he feared that they could not be converted as fast as they were arriving; that they ought to be made pay a heavy sum, or sent back.  “In short,” said he one day to poor Mrs. Doherty, “I was not elected by them Irish paupers, and I never expect to be.”

“If every thing you say was as true as that last word, I think you would be an honest man for wonst,” said Mrs. Doherty; “for there is no fear that an Irishman’s or a Christian’s vote will ever elect the like of you.  God forgive you this day!”

To suppose that any man could display such bona fide ignorance as this official did in the foregoing, would be to form an incorrect and inadequate estimate of the human mind.  The fact was that Van Stingey was a false, low, cruel man, whose soul, steeped in the sensuality of his past life, had lost all that was divine in its nature.  His circumstances were so reduced by his crimes and dissipation, that, being “too lazy to work, and ashamed to beg,” he assumed first the guise of religion to gain popularity; and when he had “got religion,” then the teachers of the stuff which they call by that noble name, to keep it respectable, procured him this office as a reward for his hypocrisy.

This was the official who startled the inmates of our house of mourning about five o’clock in the morning, when, thrusting his head inside the door, he cried out, “A corpse there, eh?”

“The Lord save us!  Who are you, or what brings you here this hour o’ night?” said old granny Doherty, suspecting him as “nothing good.”

“Like you Irish, allers asking questions,” said he, discharging a mass of tobacco almost in her face.  “I am the poormaster; and, having received a report that there was a dead pauper here, thought I would have it put out of the way early, before the folks would get up.”

“You are a very polite gintleman, God bless you.  I hope she won’t be buried so soon.  This is not the custom in any Christian country.  After to-morrow will be soon enough.  You need not be in a hurry.  We expect the priest here to see to the children, as he has already left some help, God bless him.”

“She must be enterred this morning, having died with the ship fever, I suppose.  The citizens expect me to do my dooty; and that I will do, if the Lord spares me.”

“The dickens a ship fever nor no other fever she had; but the poor woman’s heart broke, seeing what she had come to in a strange country,” said Mrs. Doherty, pityingly.

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The Cross and the Shamrock from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.