by Peter Quinn
Nothing left. No farmhouse. No fields. No Amos Greene. Who remembered him, the youngest soldier of the Revolution?
Corrigan stood behind the Archbishop and waited. The wind cut through his clothing. The sweat was a cold film against his body. He would be the one who would end up getting sick. It was Heaney’s fault. He shivered. At least the Archbishop was wrapped in his black cape. At the base of the Archbishop’s skull, Corrigan noted, were two slight indentations, as if the flesh had wasted away. Hughes was a small man but had the thick, hard body of a laborer, the result of a childhood and young manhood spent as a hired hand. An awkward strength, too concentrated in the arms and chest, it had made him seem larger than he was. But the muscle was disappearing, the Archbishop’s body sagging like the framework around his cathedral.
The year he had come over from Rome and taken up his duties as the Archbishop’s secretary, Corrigan had driven up from Mulberry Street with Hughes for the laying of the cornerstone. They had put on their vestments in an old farmhouse across from the field. It had been sold by its owner, the boy hero of the Revolution, to a speculator, who had rented it to the diocese for the day. An exorbitant price. But they had no choice. Thirty priests were to be in the procession. They needed someplace to dress. When they had vested and come out on the porch, they were shocked at the size of the crowd that was still gathering. People were streaming up Madison and Fifth. A vast throng already filled the field, a sea that lapped around the wooden island erected near Fifth Avenue on which the dignitaries were to sit.
The Feast of the Assumption. August 15th. It was not yet midmorning, but the heat was blistering. On the fringes of the crowd, the odd tent sprouted up where beer and whiskey were being sold. Hughes called over the Commissioner of Police and demanded it be stopped. But as soon as the police closed one tent, another would open somewhere else. One German beer vendor, with a cask roped down in the back of his wagon, began to scream loudly when the police moved in and tried to lead him away. The crowd surged around him, and the police backed off. Hughes stood motionless on the porch. From behind, Corrigan could see the muscles in the Archbishop’s neck as they tightened. Above the white of the stola, his skin was crimson.
Corrigan walked next to Hughes as thurifer. There was barely enough room for them to pass. The people in front pushed back against the solid wall of humanity behind them. There was shouting, and it seemed as if the crowd might surge forward and overwhelm the Archbishop and his priests. Hughes kept moving at a deliberate pace, turning right and left to give his benediction. One man fell to his knees as the Archbishop drew near. The sway of the crowd sent him sprawling. Hughes stepped over him and moved on.
A layer of brown dust began to cover the white vestments of the priests. It filled their mouths. Corrigan thought he would have to put the censer down. With the smoke and the dust, he could barely breathe. He kept moving, his eyes down, and followed the silver-tipped spike on the bottom of Hughes’s crosier as it struck the dry, brittle earth. It was frightening to look up. The flushed faces covered with matted hair. Mouths of broken teeth. The smell of a barnyard. Some of them were reeling drunk. Their heavy woolen pants and jackets, hideously ill-fitted, were soaked with sweat. An old woman with a heavy black shawl and a pipe stuck between her teeth held up a pair of rosary beads. She put her face into Corrigan’s. “Bless me beads, Father,” she said rapidly as she stepped backward. She repeated it over and over. “Bless me beads, Father.” The stench of her breath almost made him vomit. He kept the censer in his right hand and blessed her beads with his left.
They drew near to the platform. The crowd was thicker than ever. As people shuffled backward to make way for the procession, others were pushed against the platform. They screamed loudly. Hughes went up the wooden stairs first. When he reached the top, a thunderous cheer went up. Corrigan came up behind him. Governor King was standing there, holding his tall hat in his hand. Behind the small silver circles of his spectacles, his eyes were wide with fear. The dignitaries all stood and crowded around Hughes, as if for protection. In the middle of the platform was the cornerstone. It sat there like an altar. The priests came up behind him and filled the platform. Corrigan stood directly behind Hughes and swung the censer. A priest came forward and opened the book from which Hughes was to read the prayers.
The constant motion of the crowds continued to stir the dust. The sun was at its height and seemed to be burning away what little air there was to breathe. Corrigan kept his eyes down. To his left he could see a portion of the crowd, their heads pressing up against the platform, pain and anger on their faces. Corrigan inched closer to Hughes. He had been in Rome since he was twelve. When his father died, his mother had sold the family’s livery stable, on Washington Street, and gone to Rome, where her brother served as rector for the Irish Franciscans. It was the Famine winter. Corrigan remembered the people coming up to the stable door and begging food or work. More and more of them every day. They filled up the neighborhood, cramming into basements and cellars unfit for habitation. Their children took over the streets. At night they scoured the garbage piled up by the river. His mother forbade him to go out. She gave them food, but they stole from her anyway. They are a disgrace to our kind, his mother said, a living, breathing disgrace.
“O Jesus, I’m being crushed,” yelled one woman positioned directly at Corrigan’s feet. Her face was scarlet from the heat and her screaming. Other voices competed with hers. Together they made a deafening roar. Only gradually did Corrigan make out a steady insistent sound beneath. A creaking. Wood bending. The platform was beginning to sway. Corrigan looked over at Governor King. His eyes were bulging. “My God,” Corrigan heard one of the priests behind him say loudly.
Hughes stood perfectly still. When they had put on their vestments that morning in the farmhouse, a priest had said to Corrigan, “You’ll meet your sheep today, Father, the entire flock.” Hughes had laughed. “Some of them are a little wild, but they know their shepherd and he knows them.” Corrigan had nodded. When they saw the size of the crowd, Hughes lost his humor. “We will proceed slowly,” he said. “This is a day of dignity and celebration. The people will not let me down. There will be no cause for scandal. They will not give justification to our accusers. I know them.”
The creaking continued. The sway of the platform grew more pronounced. Hughes continued to look down at the book held in front of him. But his eyes were closed. The muscles in his neck were taut and prominent. Suddenly he lifted the crosier above his miter. He clenched it in both fists. Corrigan watched the bulk of the Archbishop’s shoulders as he held the staff over his head. He seemed about to hurl it into the crowd. In a strong and steady voice, he intoned, “In nomine Paris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” The noise diminished. The pushing began to stop, those behind gradually making room for those in front. Far back, at the edge of the crowd, the noise around the refreshment tents seemed to become louder as the people near the platform grew quiet. But in a moment it too ceased. Hughes held the stick aloft, a coil of silver at its head. The chieftain’s rod. He waited for silence. When it came, he brought the crosier back to his side and began to read the prayers from the book.
Corrigan felt another chill. It made him shake violently. No doubt about it now. He was getting sick. He looked behind him. The watchman had come out of his hut and was staring at them. Corrigan motioned for the watchman to approach. The two of them could quickly escort the Archbishop back to the coach. One on each side for the short distance that was left. There could be no escape. When Corrigan turned around, the Archbishop was already in motion, the wind filling his cape as he sailed forward.
“This is quite enough, quite enough. I am getting sick, Your Grace,” Corrigan shouted after him. Hughes moved toward the cathedral. He didn’t look behind. The watchman came up beside Corrigan.
“Is there something wrong, Father?”
“Something wrong?” Corrigan said. “Something wrong?” He sputtered with anger. Goddamn Heaney. And Mrs. Rodrigue. And this
incorrigible old man. An impossible burden. He didn’t deserve such a trial. When he had been about to leave Cardinal Barnabo’s apartment, the Cardinal had put his hands on Corrigan’s shoulders. “You will have a cross to carry, Father. A heavy cross in a wild and untamed country where heresy is strong. But as the burden is great, so shall be the reward.” The Cardinal had gently patted his face.
“Come with me,” Corrigan told the watchman. “When His Grace turns around, you walk on one side of him and I’ll be on the other. We’ll go straight to the coach.”
“Yes, Father.”
Another drone. The cousin, nephew, brother, of some priest. Poorly shaved. Hairs sticking out of his nose and ears. Cracked and stained teeth. A dull look in his eyes. Another Heaney. Corrigan felt tired. Sometimes the burden was almost too heavy to bear. Hughes was walking up to the wall again. He went under the scaffolding. Corrigan felt the droplets of rain on his hat. It grew more steady. Goddamn.
Hughes walked up a short set of wooden stairs. He stood at what would be a side door into the still roofless cathedral. Inside was a field of mud, planks of wood thrown about. Weeds pushed out from beneath the large blocks of marble that sat squat and forlorn. A ruin like the thousands of ruined churches and abbeys of Ireland. Save for the cathedrals the Protestants had taken for themselves, the rest had been destroyed, their roofs torn off, the lead melted into bullets for the Protestant armies, the old vessels and chalices smelted into bullion for Protestant merchants, the land taken for the Protestant gentry. A nation of Catholic ruins and Catholic serfs. Hughes’s father had stood in the road after Mary’s funeral, the tears running down his face. But when the coach of Lord Osborne had hurtled past, Hughes’s grieving, distracted father had lifted his hat in respect. The habits of servitude.
As a small boy, Hughes had gone with his mother and sisters to the place where they heard Mass. The men walked ahead. They talked in hushed tones. It was around the time of the Union with Great Britain. He must have been four or five. The Protestant yeomanry still rode around the countryside intent on driving home the lessons of 1798: Rebellion will be punished! Traitors will be executed! Croppies, lie down! The Catholics had contemplated building a chapel, but they were afraid it would be seen as a provocation, so they decided to wait. They would hear Mass as before. In the fields, the priest stood beneath a scáthlán, a wooden canopy, and the people knelt in the wet grass.
The priest said the holiest of words. “Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum.” He raised the Host, then genuflected before it. Into the silence came the thud of approaching horses. They were moving quickly. The men stayed on their knees. There was nothing illegal in what they were doing. Lord Osborne had given them the wood for the scáthlán. Big men, with strong backs and powerful arms, they were afraid. Young John Hughes clung to his mother. She wrapped her shawl around him.
Suddenly a fox bolted from beneath a hedge. It came across the field, darting from side to side, absorbed in its own terror. In a second it was out of sight. From the other side of the hedge came the wild barking of hounds. One came under the hedge. Two more followed. The whole pack raced behind on the scent of the fox. The sound of horses filled the air, and a great black horse soared over the hedge. The red-coated rider had one hand pressed flat on the top of his black hat. Horse and rider seemed to shudder as they hit the ground. They took off in a shower of torn earth. One by one, other horses and riders followed. They splattered mud everywhere. When they were gone, the men stood in the chewed-up field. There was relief on their faces.
Hughes turned to his right. Three planks had been nailed across the entrance to the workmen’s stairway that zigzagged to the top of the scaffolding. He grabbed the top plank and pulled. It held. He pulled harder. It came out with a groan. He tried the second plank. It gave way easily. He entered the stairway and began to climb.
Corrigan heard the crack of wood. He rushed ahead and looked around in bewilderment. Hughes was gone. From above he heard the pounding of planks. Through the platforms and ropes he could see the Archbishop two levels above him, moving higher. The watchman was nowhere in view. He must be outside. Corrigan started off to get him. He stopped. There was no time. He entered the stairway and grasped the rail. It shook in his hand. He blessed himself. He took the stairs two at a time and stopped at the second landing to catch his breath. All he could see of the Archbishop were the muddy shoes and the bottom of his cape. Corrigan felt his thighs tightening. His heart had always been weak. Cardinal Barnabo’s physician in Rome had warned specifically against the ill effects of exertion. It pumps too much blood into the heart, he’d said. Corrigan kept his eyes on the stairs. The tightening in his legs grew worse and extended into his stomach. He felt a powerful pressure on his bowels, as if he might have to evacuate them. He took three flights without stopping, and when he reached the last, he went sprawling. His heart felt ready to explode. He raised himself to his knees. One more flight. He looked down. Through a wide space in the planks he could see the ground below. A fatal distance. He stood and gathered up his cassock in his left hand, took the rail in his right, and went up as fast as he could.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw the Archbishop walking along the broad parapet to the cathedral’s northwest corner, where one of the spires would stand. The scaffolding was about a foot from the wall. Corrigan sat on the landing and took off the round, broad-brimmed hat he had bought in Rome, a hat like Cardinal Antonelli’s, the Pope’s secretary, and wedged it under the step, safe from the wind. When he stood, the wind flipped his short cape up against his face. His foot slipped into the space between the wall and the scaffolding, and he tumbled forward onto the wall. He lay on his stomach with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he could see down to the ground. The pressure in his stomach became irresistible. For a moment, he wasn’t sure whether he would vomit or defecate, and then the volcano inside him erupted and he threw up over the side of the building. The stream of vomit sailed through the air, and it seemed a long time before it hit the ground. Corrigan wiped the water from his eyes with his sleeve. He pushed himself to his feet and tried to steady himself. His legs were quivering with pain. It was another hundred or so feet before he would reach the Archbishop. The old man was at the edge of the wall, and a violent burst of wind, which seemed to make him stagger, ripped off his zucchetto and, with it, the hairpiece he was wearing, the new one he had bought in Paris before seeing the Emperor. Hughes turned and looked at Corrigan. The Archbishop’s skull was shiny and knobby, his cheeks sunken. He was smiling. He beckoned to Corrigan to come forward. Then he turned around again.
As a young man, with the priesthood still a distant dream, Hughes had gone ahead of his people. The first trickle in the massive exodus that would follow. In the hold of the ship, the “superfluous inhabitants” mentioned in the parliamentary reports on conditions in Ireland were given far less air and space than the animals. One of the women from Donegal lost two of her three children to fever and sickness on the voyage. She begged to be allowed to keep their bodies until they reached Philadelphia and she could bring them to a priest for burial. The captain said that it was out of the question. They were buried at dusk, after the cabin passengers had finished their post-dinner walk around the deck. The first mate read from the Book of Common Prayer, and the two small sacks weighted with paving blocks were dropped overboard. The mother keened after them, and the other women joined in. The captain sent down word to have the “savage noise” stopped, and the women were taken below. The women cried all night, and in a corner a small gray man said over and over in Irish, “God is abandoning us, God is abandoning us.” Hughes told him to be quiet.
In Maryland, a family of Catholics hired Hughes to work on their plantation. Haughty people proud of their English descent, they made him sleep in the barn. He took his meals with the slaves. As soon as the harvesting was done, the overseer called him to the porch of the house. We have no more need of you, he said. With food and lodging taken from his wages, his pay for a season’s work
came to less than a pound. That afternoon he set out walking to Harrisburg, where his father was working as a laborer on a new turnpike. On the way he fell in with four other men who had also been let go at season’s end and were going north in search of work. Three were from Galway, one from Cork. At night they sat in silence around the fire they made in an open field. No one spoke until the Cork man, a thickset laborer with a shock of wiry red hair, said, “When the boat bringing us over came near to land, I fell to my knees. I thought I’d reached the Promised Land.” He laughed. The others stared into the fire.
In the first winter of the Famine, the same year he brought the Jesuits to Fordham, Hughes spoke at a meeting for Irish relief at Castle Garden. He was famous now. “Dagger John,” as the Protestants and nativists called him. A feared opponent. He said that while there were those who saw this calamity as a judgment on the Irish, as God’s punishment, the truth was that it was God’s judgment on the English, a final testament to the wicked results of their centuries-long oppression of the Irish. The crowd roared its approval. But he was left feeling empty. Where was the will of God in this? A people who had suffered and died for His Church, who had become serfs for Christ’s sake, were suffering a crowning indignity of starvation, their remnants tossed across the sea to a land that had no use for them.
When he had left Castle Garden, he walked up Broadway to the Astor House, where the organizers of the meeting were holding a small dinner. It was February, and the wind off the harbor was brutal and penetrating. As he approached Bowling Green, where the Americans had toppled a statue of George III at the beginning of their Revolution, he heard the sound of a fiddle rising and falling with the wind. A small crowd was gathered. He pushed up behind them to see what they were watching.
