CHAPTER III.

AN OFFICIAL.

Our poormaster, Van Stingey, was a very conscientious officer. He never squandered what he called the people's property, the commonwealth. He was none of your vulgar, ordinary poormasters. He did not want the office; they only forced it on to him. Like some of your great statesmen, he acted for _man_, as he emphatically said; not for poor widows and orphans, taken one by one; that was only a secondary consideration. His whole duty, his very existence, seemed to be needed for the good of man, or humanity in general. The question with him was, not how to relieve this or that poor man or woman. _That_ might engage the attention of a man of no intelligence, no education, or no philosophy: what he aspired to was, always to act by principle; to act so that the state, or the people who owned _real estate_, and who elected him against his will, to see that their interests were attended to, whatever became of the poor. Accordingly, when he heard of any case of particular distress, such as that a poor emigrant died of misery in a cold, deserted house, our poormaster regretted it, as an individual; but, as an officer, he said, he acted according to principle. He could not betray his constituents, who elected him against his will, by any act of extravagance; and the good of the many must be consulted. "Even the Lord," he used to say,--for he was a religious man,--"when he created the sun, left spots in it." The best statesman must sometimes do what may be cruel to the few; but, in the end, it would turn out for the good of man. This district, since his election, now twice successively, had made a saving of some two hundred a year since he became its officer; and that would, in time, open the eyes of the people as to who were proper candidates for office, tend to diminish taxes, and, in fact, be a work for man--progress and virtue. Besides this, Mr. Poormaster Van Stingey had "got religion," by which he was wonderfully enlightened, having been so lucky as to gain that valuable accomplishment just six months, and only six months, before his election, at a camp meeting held near the village of M----ville.

"I tell you what, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Knicks," said he, "there is nothin' like religion. Before I got religion, and jined the church, I didn't have any knowledge of God. I used to pity these emigrants, seeing them poor and pale looking as death; but now, sir, I reads my Bible, and finds that the Lord must not regard nor love these Papists, wher'n he lets them run down so. The word of life is great."

"Wal, I do not know. I care not a straw about any church; but my old mother used to teach us, when children, that poverty and crosses were no sign of the Lord's displeasure; as witness holy Job and Christ himself, who were poor. In fact, she never stopped telling us, when boys, that riches were dangerous, the love of money the root of all evil, and that 'whom he chastiseth the Lord loveth.'"

"O, but your mother was a stiff Papist, you know, and did not understand the word of God."

"Yes, sir-ee, she did that; for I well recollect that, in the many arguments she had with father, she always had the best of it. That she had."

"She may argue from Jesuit books and the like; but the Bible she durst not look at, you know, Knicks."

"I know better, Van. Don't you talk so. I have got the very Bible she used and read every day--a great large one, printed in London. Mother was English, and herself a convert to the church of Rome, though father was Dutch."

"Why, I never knowed that, Knicks. That was a great misfortune. These priests, by the arts of Antichrist, will come round simple folks so, that they often succeed in leading them down to destruction."

"Well, sir," said Knicks, "I can tell you I never met a Christian but my mother; and I cannot believe or listen to you say she went to destruction, but to heaven, if there is such a place. And again: if I were to embrace any religion, it would be the Roman Catholic religion; for it is the only _honest religion_ there is. Father often brought Methodist and Presbyterian ministers to make mother give up her'n; but it was no go. She always treated them civil; but they had the worst of the argument, I can tell you. They brought their Bibles, and she her'n; and then they would set to, and be at it, till at last they were obliged to give up. The only difference between her Bible and theirs is, that her'n contained some fourteen or fifteen books more than the Protestant Bible. The end of it was, that father turned with mother, and had the Irish priest O'Shane to attent him afore he died. Mother got us all baptized too."

"Indeed!" carelessly ejaculated our official. "I must call and see that Bible of yours some day."

This conversation--which happened a few days before the death of our emigrant widow--between his neighbor "Knicks" and our official shows what an _enlightened gentleman_ he was. Since his elevation to office, he also got promotion to another situation, which, though not so lucrative as that of poormaster, in the course of time, by proper management, promised to come to something. In a certain school house in his vicinity, where the faithful were too poor, too irreligious, or too pernicious to hire a preacher, our official held forth every Sunday, and several evenings on the week days, at prayer meetings, protracted meetings, and other roaring exercises. And to do him credit, his nasal accent and piercing shrill voice made him a capital substitute for the _hired_ regular Methodist preacher. He could be heard for nearly a mile distant calling on the _brethern_ and _sistern_ to come to heaven.

"O, let us come!" he would cry; "we were made and intended for heaven. I see the shining seats, I see the crystal fountains, I see the Lord sitting on the throne. Come, sisters, come! I could embrace ye all for the Lord's sake. I could hide ye in my bosom. O! O!"

There were some whose faith was not strong enough to place implicit reliance on the veracity of this very enlightened "minister of the word;" but the great majority believed, or pretended to believe, and expressed their faith by crying out, "Glory! glo-ry! glo-r-y!"

If a more particular or personal description of our official is required, we can state, from minute observation, that Mr. Van Stingey was of the middle size, of thin, cadaverous appearance, short neck, snake head, with lank, sandy hair, nose flat and simex-like, small eyes, one of which he kept continually shut, as if he supposed himself a match for the poor whom he had to deal with by keeping one "eye skinned," reserving the other for some important office in church or state, 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.

"Wal, wal, if she had trusted in the Lord, and knew the word of God, he would not have deserted her as he has," hypocritically answered the official.

"I beg your pardon, sir, don't judge rashly. She was not deserted by God, but died content and happy, after all the rites of her holy religion were administered to her," was the prompt reply.

"You think so; but I want to know how she could love God without the Bible; and you Roman Catholics are not allowed its use."

"God help those that can't read so," said Mrs. Doherty. "There is no chance for me or my old man, for neither of us can read it; but not so Mrs. O'Clery, God be good to her. She had her Bible, and many more good books."

"Yes, sir," said Paul, joining in the dialogue. "We have always had the true Catholic Bible, and mother always read it on her knees."

"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.)