Received into a hospitable family--Fluctuating feelings--Visits from several persons--Father Phelan's declarations against me in his church--Interviews with a Journeyman Carpenter--Arguments with him.
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 cariole, 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 Dr. 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 prison. I mention this to guard you against being deceived by what she may say. The devil has such a hold upon people now-a-days, that there is danger that some might believe her story."
Before he concluded his speech, as was declared, he burst into tears, and appeared to be quite overcome. When the congregation had been dismissed, a number of them came round him, and he told some of them, that I was Antichrist; I was not a human being, as he was convinced, but an evil spirit, who had got among the Catholics, and been admitted into the nunnery, where I had learnt the rules so that I could repeat them. My appearance, he declared, was a fulfilment of prophecy, as Antichrist is foretold to be coming, in order to break down, if possible, the Catholic religion.
