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Culvert's house that night, and it was more than a week before the pious Mrs. Gulvert could be consoled or prevailed on to show herself down stairs. She was either really sick, or affected sickness, so that it was doubted whether or not she could survive the loss of her "darling team." O, what a loss was there!
How did it get into the well? He trembled visibly as it struck his mind that possibly Eugene might have fallen in too. "Are you sure there is nobody else in?" said he to the bystanders. "No, there ain't nobody else in," said Gulvert; "all we have left, now, are around here." "And how came this relic to get into the well?" said Paul. "I think I saw this before." "That?
"The team would fetch two hundred dollars between two brothers, and it was only last month the new wagon cost seventy or eighty dollars; and all now gone." "What a misfortune that I went out to hear that preacher at all on the Sabbath!" said Gulvert. "Had I remained at home, or walked down to meeting, I would be three hundred dollars richer to-day than I am now."
As the night was dark, and the road the animals took in their furious course was not known, it was not till next morning that the fate of the team was discovered, though not only Gulvert himself, but his hired help, including his servant girl and wife even, were out all night on the search for them.
Gulvert, one of them an old maid, whom they imposed upon by their lying representations and profane discourses. Here was a little more of the natural fruit of Mr. Gulvert's great zeal for his sect.
"And in future," said they, "we expect to see cooked and on the table, on Fridays and fast days, such food as we can partake of without scruple of conscience, or violating the rules of the Catholic religion, of which we are unworthy members." "This is strange," said Gulvert; "why did you not tell me ye belonged to Rome, and were Irish?" "Why did we not tell you? Because you did not ask us.
While he was living and in suffering, there was nobody to sympathize with him or to say a word in his favor; but now, when that sympathy could do him no good, according to the custom of modern philanthropy, there was an abundance on hand, and the conduct of Shaw Gulvert, as the agent of Parson Waistcoat, was censured by a thousand tongues.
"Yes, I did that," said he, "by the advice of that old fool Parson Waistcoat, who expected, as he succeeded in converting Pete and Bill Kurney, that he would also convert the rest of their friends, if they were out here from Popish Ireland." "O Gulvert," said his better half, sobbing again anew, "you will kill me! I cannot live with you, that is the amount of it!
Gulvert broke loose from the post to which they were tied while he was at meeting, and, taking fright, rushed along at full speed on a narrow by-road by the river that ran through the village, till, coming in contact with the root of a tree that protruded from the road, the horses and wagon were precipitated over a fall of some twenty feet into the channel of the river beneath.
O, the blood of this innocent Abel, of this infant martyr, shed by the cruel Herod of Presbyterianism, will cry to Heaven for vengeance on your heads, and bring a curse on your hypocrisy and dissimulation. The news of Eugene's death, communicated by the servant maid, created a sudden fear, but very little sympathy, in the brutal family of Mr. Gulvert.
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