CHAPTER VIII.
PAPAL DENUNCIATIONS.
IN the morning I received an invitation to go to the house of a respectable Protestant, an old inhabitant of the city, who had been informed of my situation; and although I felt hardly able to move, I proceeded thither in a carriage, and was received with a degree of kindness, and treated with such care, that I must ever retain a lively gratitude towards the family.
On Saturday I had a visit from Doctor Robertson, to whose house I had been taken soon after my rescue from drowning. He put a few questions to me and soon withdrew.
On Monday, after the close of mass, a Canadian man came in, and entered into conversation with the master of the house in an adjoining room. He was, as I understood, a journeyman carpenter, and a Catholic, and having heard that a fugitive nun was somewhere in the city, began to speak on the subject in French. I was soon informed that Father Phelan had just addressed his congregation with much apparent excitement about myself; and thus the carpenter had received his information. Father Phelan's words, according to what I heard said by numerous witnesses, at different times, must have been much like the following:—
"There is a certain nun now in this city, who has left our faith, and joined the Protestants. She has a child, of which she is ready to swear I am the father. She would be glad in this way to take away my gown from me. If I knew where to find her I would put her in
