o. And
besides that, they insulted his reverence by telling him, if he dared to
come to try to kidnap us, they would tar and feather, or shoot him, the
Lord save us."

"I wish to God I was present," said Murty; "I would settle bread on some
of them; that I would, and no mistake," said he, bringing his clenched
fist down on the table, "if I heard them insult the minister of Christ
in any shape or form. Oh, America! America!" said he, in an undervoice,
"I am deceived in you. I thought you were a second paradise, where all
was peace, and comfort, and justice, and prosperity, and true liberty.
But alas! I find all my ideas of your character erroneous and false. All
the crimes of the old world are not only here, where we thought the very
soil was virgin pure and unstained, but here in the most odious forms.
The poor at home were naked, and hungry, and ground; but most of them
were _innocent_, and _an innocent man is not entirely miserable_. The
poor here, besides their poverty and wretched slavery, working eighteen
out of the twenty-four hours, are almost all wicked in addition. The
crimes in the old country, that aristocratic institutions kept up in
the inaccessible palaces of the rich,--like the panther's den on the
summit of yonder mountain,--here are familiar to the lowest and
vulgarest of the populace. In the old country, the few and the rich were
unjust, cruel, wicked; it was so in Ireland. Here the vices of the few
are ingrafted on the many, and, like the small-pox, they do not become
weaker, but stronger, by universal propagation. I wish I never saw you,
America," said he, musing, his head resting against the wall; "I wish I
was in the grave with my two sisters and mother, rather than here to
witness the slavery, corruption, and vice of America." The remainder of
his musings were lost in the sighs and emotions that proceeded from his
manly bosom.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FRUITS OF THE CROSS.

Paul was now a free man, the term of apprenticeship having expired. It
was his right now, according to the terms of the implied contract, not
only to receive support and clothing, but wages; and Mr. Prying was very
willing to keep him in the house and give him a man's wages; but this
conflicted with Amanda's plan and that of her advisers; consequently,
Paul was reluctantly obliged to part with the society of his sister
Bridget, who had yet a part of her term to serve, and to look out among
the neighboring farmers for a si