Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk/Chapter 28
CHAPTER IX.
MY AFFIDAVIT.
ANOTHER person who expressed a desire to see me was an Irish milkman. He had heard, what had seemed to be pretty generally reported, that I blamed none but the Irish priests. He put the question, whether it was a fact that I accused nobody but Father Phelan. I told him it was not so, and this pleased him so well, that he told me, if I would stay in Montreal, I should have milk for myself and child as long as I lived. It is well known that strong antipathies have long existed between French and Irish Catholics in that city.
The next day the poor Irishman returned, but in a very different state of mind. He was present at church in the morning, he said, when Father Phelan told the congregation that the nun of whom he had spoken before, had gone to court and accused him; and that he, by the power he possessed, had struck her powerless as she stood before the judge, so that she sunk helpless on the floor. He expressed, by the motion of his hands, the unresisting manner in which she had sunk under the mysterious influence, and declared that she would have died on the spot, but that he had chosen to keep her alive that she might retract her false accusation. This, he said she did, most humbly, before the court, acknowledging that she had been paid a hundred pounds as a bribe.
The first words of the poor milkman, on revisiting me, therefore, were like these: "That's to show you what power the priest has! Didn't he give it you in the court? It is to be hoped you will leave the city now." He then stated what he had heard Father Phelan say, and expressed his entire conviction of its truth, and the extreme joy he felt on discovering, as he supposed he had, that his own priest was innocent, and had gained such a triumph over me.
A talkative Irishwoman also made her appearance, among those who called at the house, and urged for permission to see me. She said, "I have heard dreadful things are told by a nun you have here, against the priests; and I have come to convince myself of the truth. I want to see the nun you have got in your house. "When informed that I was unwell, and not inclined at present to see any more strangers, she still showed much disposition to obtain an interview. "Well, aint it too bad," she asked, "that there should be any reason for people to say such things against the priests?" At length she obtained admittance to the room where I was, entered with eagerness, and approached me.
"Arrah," she exclaimed, "God bless you—is this you? Now sit down, and let me see the child. And it is Father Phelan's, God bless you? But they say you tell about murders; and I want to know if they are all committed by the Irish priests." "Oh no," replied I, "by no means." "Then God bless you" said she. "If you will live in Montreal, you shall never want, I will see that neither you nor your child ever want for putting part of the blame upon the French priests. I am going to Father Phelan, and I shall tell him about it. But they say you are an evil spirit. I want to know whether it is so or not." "Come here," said I, "feel me, and satisfy yourself. Besides, did you ever hear of an evil spirit having a child?"
I heard from those about me that there was great difficulty in finding a magistrate willing to take my affidavit. I am perfectly satisfied that this was owing to the influence of the priests to prevent my accusations against them from being made public. One evening, a lawyer who had been employed for the purpose, accompanied me to a French justice with an affidavit ready prepared in English for his signature, and informed him that he wished him to administer to me the oath. Without any apparent suspicion of me, the justice said, "Have you heard of the nun who ran away from the convent, and has come back to the city, to bear witness against the priests?" "No matter about that now," replied the lawyer hastily; "I have no time to talk with you—will you take this person's oath now or not?" He could not read a word of the document, because it was not in his own language and soon placed his signature at the bottom. It proved, however, that we had gained nothing by this step, for the lawyer afterward informed us that the laws required the affidavit of a nun and a minor to be taken before a superior magistrate.