"Wal, my good lad, you are pooty smart; and now get you ready, with the rest of you little critters, and come on the sleigh I will send for you. Let's see how many of you there are. One, two, three, four—a great lot of ye. As I was saying, be ready to come up to the county house till I can get some folks to take ye in to keep till ye are of age."
"The priest, sir," said Paul, "promised to call to-day; and as he already has left us a good sum of money, I know the good man will provide for us till he writes to my uncle, who would be very sorry to hear of our going to the poorhouse or the county house, though it may be a better place."
"My young lad, you will be provided for by law, and don't fail to be ready by ten o'clock," said the official, sternly, as he left the room.
In a few hours after, the body of the widow O'Clery was deposited in a rough, unplaned pine coffin, and placed on board a two-horse, open sleigh. The four orphans were stowed around in the same vehicle, and, in care of a constable, the cortege drove off at full speed to the cemetery. By half past eleven, the remains of the widow were consigned to their kindred earth, the few lumps of hard frozen clay on the surface her only monument—the sobs, sighs, and prayers of her own dear children the only requiem uttered over her lowly and soon-to-be-forgotten tomb. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors." (Apoc. xiv. 13.)
CHAPTER IV.
THE POORHOUSE.
When Father O'Shane left for the village of B——, in Vermont, to administer the rites of Christian unction to a departing soul, the roads were very hard to travel, and his progress, in company with his faithful guide, was tedious and slow in the extreme. The call was to a sick woman named Finmore, who was in the last stage of consumption, and who had often, during her illness, expressed a desire that she should be attended by a priest before she would die. Her husband did not oppose her wish, but was yet either too indifferent on the subject, or too lazy, to go such a journey as to the city of T—— in search of a personage of whom he stood in such awe, and knew so little of, as the Catholic priest. A neighboring Irish farmer, named O'Leary, hearing of the wish of the dying woman, volunteered to bring the priest, if "there was one to be found in all America," he said, "provided he got a horse and wagon from the stable of the rich Yankee." And it was in company with this simple but brave and faithful man that Father O'Shane set out on the evening of the widow's death. They had not advanced many miles, however, when the wind veered round to the north-west, and a most violent snow storm blew quite in their face. Slow and unpleasant was their progress over the hard, icy road; but in the course of a few hours their farther advance became an utter impossibility with a wagon. They had, therefore, to stop at a tavern; and after a good deal of entreaty, and after having fed their horse, they succeeded in hiring from the boss the use of a sleigh to carry them along to Vermont.
"Ye can't travel nohow to-night," said the boss; "the roads will be blocked up, chuck full."
"We'll have to travel, sir," said the Irishman, "or die in the attempt; so let us have the cutter. Charge what you have a mind to."