BY AN IRISH PASTOR
AT the period when I took possession of my new residence, the results of the late disastrous season were beginning to show themselves in various forms. Who that remembers the summer of 1817 will say that the scenes of distress and suffering which marked its progress have yet been effaced from his mind? The great inclemency of the weather during many months, had produced sickness and famine among the lower orders, beyond all former example. In particular, the deficiency of peat fuel had been so extensive, that the supply of the peasantry fell short by fully three-fourths of the quantity which in common years had been thought essential to their health and comfort. The oat crop had been scanty and defective; and the potatoes, the staple food of the poorest, were bad in quality, unwholesome, and totally insufficient for the wants of the population. The inevitable consequences of these calamities, were famine and disease; the latter being greatly aggravated by the close unventilated cabins in which the poor live. The laboring man, ill clad, ill housed, ill fed, returning to his wretched hovel, weary, hungry, and dripping from the cold rains, found neither food to nourish, nor fire to warm him. Sometimes he crept into a cheerless bed, and sought to forget in sleep the miseries of his situation; more frequently he sat before the delusive phantom of the once bright hearth, chilled, and musing, till sickness fastened upon his frame, and death itself sowed its not unwelcome seed. The twin scourges, famine and pestilence, began to afflict our peasantry about the latter end of March, and continued to grow in fearful intensity till August.
Happily the Lord raised up a few in every parish to offer their aid to the sick at this trying time. We were generally enabled to relieve the very distressed in their utmost need.
Returning from an absence of three days, I learned that a family, composed of four persons, whom I had left in the last stage of typhus fever, had all died (as was supposed) the morning after my departure. They had no near relatives around them, being recent settlers; and of their neighbors, not one had the hardihood or the kindness to enter the abode of death. The bodies had lain unattended to during the two days already mentioned; and it was only early on the third that I became acquainted with the circumstance, so strange in a civilized country. My first step on going to the spot, was to cause holes to be made in the walls of the mud cabin, at the opposite ends, to admit a free current of air. This done, and the door having been open for some days, I led the way into the house. The dead bodies lay, a father and son, in one bed; two grown up girls, his daughters, in another—a melancholy sight. They had all perished, if the people spoke the truth, within, a few hours of each other. It was probably as asserted; for though the house had been little visited, yet one of their neighbors, an old woman, who subsequently undertook the charge of washing, and dressing in funeral attire, these poor victims of the destroyer, had brought them some jugs of cold water, for which alone they expressed the smallest desire, and by this means ascertained pretty accurately the period of their decease. I was afterward obliged to assist personally in the manual labor of carrying them out of doors to their coffins, having at one time serious apprehensions that the old woman would have been my sole fellow-porter. The four were consigned to one grave.
It was while those scenes were enacting, that on a beautiful evening in July, I had walked to visit a family living about a mile distant from my residence, every one of whom, eight in number, had been attacked by the scourge of the time—typhus fever. Three of them had died. The remaining five were in various stages of convalescence, but still avoided by the great majority of their neighbors, and so feeble, as to be entirely incapable of providing for their livelihood. As I proceeded slowly through the picturesque lanes which led to their humble habitation, I met several of the rustic population, whose pale and emaciated countenances betokened, in lines not to be mistaken, the silent ravages of famine and disease. Some were anxiously surveying the early potato crop, as if they hoped, by looking on it, to hasten the growth. All seemed weak and dispirited, and replied to the language of kindness or friendship with which I addressed them, in tones of profound melancholy. My own mind caught the contagious sadness of the hour; so that when I reached the object of my excursion, I felt a species of despondency quite foreign to my general habit.
In this frame of mind I commenced my instructions at the door of the cottage of the sick family, who sat or stood around me. We had scarcely begun our devotions, when they were disturbed by the approach of a female, followed by three children between the ages of eight and four; she herself appeared somewhat under thirty, and was remarkably handsome. Without regarding my occupation, she hastily, and with a wild vigor of importunity, asked alms; the children lifting up their voices in concert, and seemingly bent on forcing their way into the house. Whether the interruption, offended me, or that the eager stare and inexplicable smile of this very comely young woman inspired me with opinions prejudicial to her character, I could not accurately define to myself; but certain it is, that her presence disturbed the train of thought I most desired to cherish; and I therefore ordered her to withdraw, with some rather severe remarks upon the intrusion she had been guilty of. She retired without uttering a word of remonstrance or apology, merely repeating the strange smile which had so struck me when she first solicited charity. She was not yet out of sight, when the stings of conscience began to work painfully within me. I ceased to pray, and asked my sick friends if they thought the woman was an imposter.
They answered with one consent, that they were firmly persuaded of the contrary; that they thought she appeared in a state of faintness from absolute starvation—was no practiced beggar or vagrant, and a stranger they had never seen before. It was besides evident, though they did not say so, that they disapproved of my conduct in dismissing my afflicted sister so abruptly. I therefore bid an instant goodnight to the cottagers, and followed the poor wanderer. The winding nature of the path, enclosed on either side by a high hedge of hawthorn, enabled me to pursue my way unperceived; and from the same cause, the little band of mendicants was concealed from my view. I knew, however, that I was on the track they had taken, and proceeded confidently for about four hundred yards without coming in sight of the object of my chase. At that moment a sudden exclamation of distress struck upon my ear. The shriek—oh! how loud and shrill it sounded!—was undoubtedly from the mother; and the mingled wail of young sorrow revealed the companions of her disaster. I hastened to the spot, fearing that they might be attacked by some dog, of which many in a half-famished state prowled through the country in quest of food. Arriving quickly at a low stile, which led from the lane by a field path to a group of cabins, a scene presented itself so surpassingly affecting, that as God’s will ordained that my eyes should behold it, so I pray that His grace may preserve it forever unaffected, undimmed, unchanged, in my heart. In the field, at a few paces beyond the stile I have spoken of, knelt and prayed, with streaming eyes and uplifted hands, the young mother. And thus she spoke: “Father of the fatherless, and God of the widow!” —these were her very words— “hast Thou brought me so far through misery and temptation, to forsake me now?” I might perhaps have heard more, but I could not refrain from pressing forward, and asking the cause of her new distress. She made no reply; but smiling as before, showed me her empty apron, and pointed to her children. The occasion of her grief was now apparent. It seemed that she had fallen, from pure weakness, in stepping over the stile. The produce of the alms-seeking of a long summer day, consisting of about a dozen of potatoes, was scattered on the grass. A flock of geese, scarcely less hungry than herself, promptly seized the poor provision, and fled away. The children engaged in a fruitless pursuit—the mother, addressed a not unheeded prayer to the footstool of the Divine Throne.
Such was the sight then, presented to my eyes; such it still remains, ever abiding in my recollection. More than twenty years have elapsed since the incident occurred. I have related it to my friends; I have thought on it with a frequency that would have rendered any other subject faded and irksome; but yet I am firmly persuaded that this one scene—one amidst the varied multiplicity of life’s checkerings—is destined of God never to be obliterated from my memory—never to diminish in freshness or in force. It seems traced as by an iron pen upon the tablets of my very soul, to remain while life and faculties shall endure.
I questioned the poor woman, whom I made sit down on the grass beside me, as to where she had come from, whither she was going, and her name. She told me, that “she was an inhabitant of a remote part of the county of—; that she had gone over with her husband and children, about three months before, to Workington, in the hope that the former would find employment in the coal-pits, where he had on, previous occasions labored. She was herself well skilled in needlework, and a tolerable laundress; and they calculated, between their joint earnings, to bring up their family in comfort and decency. But God, she said—and profound was her anguish as she pronounced the sentence—God in his unsearchable counsels decreed it otherwise. My dear kind husband, too good for a sinner like me, was carried off by fever in less than a month after we landed in England. We had already begun to thrive. My dear departed John, on the day he sickened, brought home to his little boy a child’s whistle—this, sir, which you see (for the children had grouped around us)—saying, Here, namesake, I have laid out twopence of my earnings to amuse you; but you must not play on it till tomorrow, for my head is like to split asunder from pain. Alas! Alas! that morrow came, and dear, dear John was in a raging fever!—six days more, and he was a corpse. If anything could have mitigated my affliction for such a loss—if any balm would have allayed the inexpressible pain of my heart—I might have drawn comfort from the manner in which he closed a life wherein the love of God and neighbor had shone bright and glorious. He was attended by a minister; a feeling gentleman, who performed all his offices with true Christian charity, and only ceased to speak, the words of consolation and precept to myself, when the vessel was unmoored in which I left England. But what consolation, what reflections, could recompense me for the privation I had experienced? My husband, my dear, dear husband, was gone! Oh what could supply, his place? Not surely empty words of sympathy?—and yet why should I call them empty, though they had been no more than mere words, for they flowed from full hearts; full indeed they were of every human virtue. They came from the family of the minister who visited me in my affliction, and behaved towards me with a tender regard which I can never, never forget. God also raised up some benevolent ladies, who frequently came to see me. They all wished me to remain at Workington, promising me needlework and embroidery, and after a short time the superintendence of a school likely soon to become vacant; for miserable as I must appear to you, I received an excellent education—(her language fully bespoke it)—and was accustomed to teaching. Advantages were also offered to my children, sufficient to have decided anyone but me to accept them. But strange to say, I determined from the first moment after the stunning effects of my dear partner’s death had subsided, to return to Ireland. It seemed to my poor weakened brain, as if every enjoyment I should have at Workington would be an offense against his memory and love. I knew I was very wrong—and bitterly, most bitterly, do I lament my folly: but I could not help it; a power superior to my own will seemed to govern me. By day I thought, by night I dreamed. My dead husband was continually before my eyes, warning me that ill betided my stay. The impression, far from losing its force, gained strength daily. At length it became intolerable, and in defiance of reason, kindness, prudence, duty, and affectionate remonstrance, I set sail with these orphans, and another, who I trust is now in heaven. The ladies were greatly displeased with me; still they gave me some money, and also clothes for these children, and with much excellent advice wished me farewell. I came in a coal vessel, and had a tedious passage to Belfast. While there, the Lord laid his hand on me once more. First, my little baby, an infant of four months old, died of convulsions, without scarcely any previous illness, the day after we landed. I waited one other day to see the little one decently interred, intending to set out on the morning after; but even while I stood beside the grave of my child, I was seized with shivering fits, and before night became so unwell, that the people of the house where I lodged, alarmed by the appearance, insisted on removing me to the hospital. They abandoned this intention only on learning that that receptacle already overflowed, and could admit no more patients. Still, on finding the necessity they were under, they treated me and my children with all possible tenderness. Next day the fever showed itself in its plain character. In this dreadful disease I lay for three long weeks, during a part of which I was either insensible or delirious; and when I became convalescent, I was greatly annoyed by the return of hysteric attacks, which a fright I met with at the birth of my poor baby had occasioned. As soon as I was able, and much sooner than it was prudent for me to travel, I commenced my journey with these poor children. Though I had practiced all economy, and experienced much consideration at Belfast, my resources in money, and what arose from the sale of my clothes, were totally exhausted. I left a town wherein 1 had suffered so much affliction, with ten-pence only in my pocket, and with seventy long miles to accomplish before I could reach the end of my journey—namely, the residence of my mother—a woman far advanced in years, and laboring under many infirmities. Weak as I still find myself, and with these poor children to drag along with me, we have been unable to get forward in the direct line of our journey more than about five miles each day, and perhaps may walk nearly two more through fields and lanes seeking support and shelter for the night; which latter, the dwellers by the wayside have uniformly refused, and those in more retired situations only grant in their outhouses, such is the prevailing fear that wanderers like us may carry infection. This is the sixth day since we began our pilgrimage; tomorrow, as you know, will be the Sabbath. Neither I nor my children have tasted a morsel of food since this time yesterday; and although we have not been refused by any poor body” —My fair autobiographer laid no emphasis upon the words, but my own conscience pointed them. The blood rushed into my cheeks like a fiery flood of lava; they seemed to swell as if the skin must burst; and eyes and forehead were equally burning. “Although,” she said, “we have not been refused by any poor body, yet they often gave us only one potato, and that sometimes a small one. With such store, collected during the day, we purchased a night’s lodging, and supported nature as we best might. This day has been the most unsuccessful of all, while a double need was before me. You, sir, have seen what has happened to my little provision for the morrow.”
She ceased, completely worn out, but evidently aware that her history had interested me, and that some attention was reserved for her for one night at least. I need not add, that her expectations were justified by the event. I lodged the wanderers in a cottage about a hundred paces distant from my own house. It was requisite to observe considerable caution in administering food to the entire party. Even the mother herself, when relieved from the burthen of care which oppressed her, seemed to forget the prudence which her delicate state of health demanded, and would have devoured, rather than eaten, whatever was set before her as ravenously as the most famished of her children. I attributed this greediness to the hysterical affection under which she labored, and which I now perceived had caused the wild smile that had well-nigh hardened my heart against all pity for her distress.
On further acquaintance, I discovered that she had been brought up partly by religious parents, but more especially in a gentleman’s family. She married the miner, and after some years of prosperity, adversity overtook them.
The three children came uninvited on the following day to my Sabbath school. Their mother and they attended divine service; and many a tear fell from her wan cheek. Yet I believe she rested her hopes where true joys are to be found, and I trust, did there find a blessed substitute for those transitory pleasures she was no longer to, experience here.
Monday morning came, and she insisted on resuming her journey. We did what we could to dissuade her; but in vain—she would go. I was half-vexed at this obstinacy, and expostulated with her without effect. Her principal reasons, or I should rather say answers, were sobs. But she was not insensible to our kindness. The spirit and the heart seemed in prayer, as her weeping bore witness. At length the tongue found utterance, and with much composure she thanked us all for the benevolence we had bestowed upon her, in terms of deep sensibility which I never shall forget. She asked my blessing on herself and her children, and returned it by an ardent supplication on my behalf, for which they all knelt. I trust and hope, that the trials of her who was the object of it may have been sanctified to her immortal good; and I pray that no impatience may ever again cause me to “turn my face from any poor man.”