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CHAPTER VI....concluded
Returning to Toronto after a hard day's work, Father Gordon was about entering his modest residence, to obtain some necessary refreshment, when a countryman rode up to the door. He proved to be an Irishman from the township of Tecumseth, in the county of Simcoe, about forty miles from Toronto. 'Father, I'm glad to meet you; I want you to come with me to near my place, where there's a man dying, and there's not a moment to be lost.' This was agreeable news for the poor priest, who certainly had had his fair share of the saddle for that day. 'Who is the sick man? ' he asked. 'Oh, he's one Marshall, from the North--a Protestant, and all his people the same--and he is asking for the priest. I'm a neighbour of his, and I heard it from one of his sons, and I thought I couldn't do better than come for your reverence; and so here I am, just in time, thank God.' 'Very well,' said the priest, `I will take a cup of tea, borrow a fresh horse, and be off without delay. Come in and join me, and I will be ready to start at once.' In half an hour after the two horsemen rode from the door on their journey through the forest, and it was not until late at night, thoroughly tired, that they pulled up before the house of the sick man, who was said to be at the point of death. Father Gordon dismounted, and knocked at the door, which was immediately opened by an elderly woman, at whose back stood two young men. `What do you want here, at this hour of the night?' demanded the woman. 'Is there not a sick man in the house?' inquired the priest. 'There is--my husband--he is dying.' `Well, I was sent for to see him--I am the priest.' `Priest!' shrieked the woman, as if the Evil One stood revealed before her. `Yes; I am the priest, come all the way from Toronto to see him, as he wished me to do,' was the quiet rejoinder. 'Then you may go as you came, for no priest will cross this threshold, if I can help it, no matter who wants to see him;' and saying this, the mistress of the house shut the door on Father Gordon and his guide, who was overwhelmed with confusion at the untoward result. 'To think that I should bring your reverence all this distance, and only to have the door shut in your face! I can't forgive myself; but I did it for the best.' `To be sure you did, man--you did your duty, no more; and I respect you for it. But,' added the priest, `I must be turning my horse's head homewards.' 'No, your reverence, not a step you'll go back this blessed night, if my name is Spillane*; you'll stop at my house--'tis only a mile off--and we'll try and make you as comfortable as we can. It will be time enough to think of returning to-morrow.' 'Be it so, in God's name,' said Father Gordon.
They soon reached the house, where a good supper and a clean bed made some amends for the long ride and the keen disappointment. The tired missionary was soon in a deep slumber, in which perhaps he may have beheld again the group in the doorway, lit up by the flickering candle, and heard the words, `No priest will cross this threshold if I can help it,' when he was suddenly awakened by a great noise or clatter in the house. At that moment his host entered the room. 'What is the matter, Spillane?' `Why, then, your reverence, it is a strange matter--the strangest matter I ever heard of;--young Marshall has brought his father to you, as you wouldn't be allowed to come to him,' replied the host. 'You jest, man; 'tis impossible,' said the priest, in his first impulse of astonishment. `Faith, then, 'tis no jest at all, your reverence, but the truth, as I'm a sinner, and that's no lie, any way,' said Spillane. It was the literal truth. When the dying man heard how the priest had been denied admission, and driven from his door, he was intensely afflicted; but he in vain sought to move the stern obduracy of his wife. 'Not one belonging to me ever disgraced himself by turning Papist, and you shan't be the one to commence.' The poor woman believed she was only doing her duty, and in this tranquillising conviction she soon forgot her troubles in sleep. But the dying man was inconsolable, and he moaned and wept in a manner to touch the heart of one of his sons, to whom he addressed the most earnest entreaties that he might be allowed to die as he wished to die. Moved alike by the tears and importunities of his father, the son at length yielded. But what was to be done?
The priest could not enter the house--his mother would not allow that; how, then, could his father's wish be accomplished? There was only one way of doing it, and that was quickly resolved upon and adopted. Carefully wrapping the dying man in the clothes in which he lay, the son raised him gently on his back, and, stealing softly with his precious burden, he crossed the threshold with noiseless step, and bore it a mile through the dark forest to the house in which the priest found shelter for the night, and there laid it down in safety. Whether it were that Nature rallied her failing resources, or that the spirit rose superior to the frailty of the body, it may be difficult to say; but the father preserved strength enough to be received into the Church, and prepared for death, and to be brought back to his own home, in which he shortly after breathed his last. For several years, or as long as his mother lived, the son did not separate from her communion; but he afterwards became a Catholic, and is now the wealthy head of a large Catholic family, all good and religious, and full of worldly prosperity.
Father Gordon tells many anecdotes of his missionary life among his Irish flock; and however apparently trivial some of them may appear, they afford glimpses of the early condition of the settlers in the wilderness. Drenched to the skin one day in spring, he was compelled to seek shelter in a shanty; but such was the state of that dwelling that it afforded a friendly welcome to the rain, which entered wherever it pleased through the roof; and as the priest lay on the bed, composed of two logs placed in a corner, while his clothes were being dried at the fire, he was amused at witnessing the enjoyment of a brood of young ducks that were disporting themselves in a stream that ran through the cabin.
It was in a short time after that he rode up to the door of Mrs. Macnamara, `all the way from the county of Cork.' 'Well, Mrs. Mac, have you anything for a poor traveller?' `'Deed, then, your reverence, there's a hearty welcome, and you know that; and I have a grain of tea, and the makings of a cake--and sure they're yours with a heart and a half, and so they would if they were ten times as much,' said Mrs. Mac. The good woman at once set about making the cake, which was soon in a forward state of preparation, and then, with much solemnity, she proceeded to 'make the tea,' which, in order to 'draw' it in the most scientific manner, she placed in its little black pot on a corner of the fire, away from the blaze. Mrs. Mac's stock of candles had long been exhausted, and she was obliged to be content with the light from the hearth; but Father Gordon had to 'pay his debt to the Pope,' and, in order to read his closely-printed breviary, he was constantly poking the fire with the end of a stick. `Take care of the teapot, Father Gordon, dear--take care of it, for your life!' remonstrated the good woman, as she observed the reckless vigour with which the priest used the improvised poker. `No fear, ma'am--no fear, ma'am,' he invariably replied. But there was every reason to fear, as the result proved; for, in one desperate effort to shed light on the small print, the priest brought down the entire superstructure, and with it the cherished teapot, which rolled, empty and spoutless, on the floor. Here was a disaster! The poor woman clapped her hands, as she cried, 'Oh, Father Gordon, jewel! what did you do? You broke my teapot, that I brought from Ireland, every step of the way, and I so fond of it! But, Father dear, 'tis worse for you, for there isn't another grain of tea in the house--and what will you do? Oh dear! oh dear!' Father Gordon had, as penance for his involuntary offence, to wash down the cake with the water of a neighbouring spring.
No one was more surprised at the changes wrought in comparatively a few years after, than was Father Gordon, who witnessed the infancy of the Irish settlements of the county of Simcoe.
'My dear sir,' said he, 'I could scarcely credit my eyesight, it was all so wonderful--like a dream. Fine roads, and splendid farms, and grand mansions, and horses and carriages, and noble churches with organs and peals of bells, and schools--yes, my dear sir, and ladies and gentlemen, the aristocracy of the country! What a difference between what I beheld on my last visit, and what I remember when I saw the young ducks in the stream running through the cabin floor, and when poor Mrs. Mac's last grain of tea was lost in the ashes. Dear, dear! what a wonderful change! God has been very merciful to our poor people. I never,' continued the good priest, who could speak with authority as to his countrymen, whom during his long life he loved and served with all the zeal and earnestness of his nature--'I never knew one of them that did not succeed, provided he was sober and well-conducted. Drink, sir, drink is the great failing of our race; and if they had a hundred enemies, that's the worst of all. But, thank God, on the whole, our people are good and religious, and every day advancing. It is a great change from what they were in the old country, and a greater change from what I remember they were thirty years ago in this.'
To my suggestion that he had had his own share of toil in those distant days, he replied: `Well, my dear sir, no doubt I had many a hard ride through the forest, and I often had to depend on my poor horse, as my heavy eyelids closed while I sat in the saddle, overpowered with fatigue and want of sleep. But no matter what labour I had to undergo, I always received my reward in the faith and love of the people--their delight at seeing their priest, and hearing his voice--why, sir, it would raise any man's spirits. And how they kept the faith!--it was surprising. For years some would not see a priest; but still the faith was there in the mother's heart, and she would teach it to her children. We have lost some, for there were sheep without shepherds; but that we did not lose more, and that we saved so many in times long gone by, is only to be attributed to the mercy of God, and the tenacity with which the Irish cling to their faith. Oh, sir, their devotion, and their affection, and their gratitude, cheered me many a time, and made me forget fatigue and trouble of every kind. God bless them! they are a good people.'
These were almost the last words I heard from the lips of that true-hearted Irish priest, for it was of his people he loved to speak. Father Gordon has lived to see his church thoroughly organised, divided into several dioceses, each diocese having an efficient staff of clergymen, with numerous institutions, educational and charitable, under the care of the religious orders. Of the Bishops, four are Irish, and about one hundred of the clergy are either of Irish birth or descent. The religious orders also owe much of their strength to the same great national well-spring of the faith.
* Spillane or Sullivan, I am not certain which.
END OF CHAPTER VI.
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