"I am here in a state in which not a shadow of trouble seems to come, but what I cause for myself. With a little humility there is peace enough. I suppose I shall have some more troubles hereafter if I live. I have not been so well for several years. Some would have thought a Lent without a bit of meat would not have done for me; but I have seen now since Shrove Tuesday, and, in Lent or out of it, I never have been better. So in that respect, viz., my health, I suppose my trial here is satisfactory." A rude shock was in store for his health which he little anticipated when he wrote those lines. This was the terrible year of famine in Ireland, that year which will be remembered for ever by those who lived in the midst of the harrowing scenes that overspread that unhappy country. Poor famishing creatures, who had laid their fathers or mothers, and perhaps their children, in coffinless graves, begged their way to England, and began that tide of {358} emigration which has since peopled Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London, with such crowds of Catholics. Every ship brought its cargo of misery, and the hapless victims were forced by their poverty to seek for lodgings in dens of vice, or employment where virtue was not paramount. They thus imbibed a poison to their morals which has not yet been completely purged out of the thousands who have had to follow the footsteps of their famine-stricken predecessors. Numbers of the poor Irish gathered around Stone and Aston; fever broke out amongst them, and the wards of the workhouse infirmaries were unable to contain even a moiety of the sufferers. Every hovel and barn had their burning occupants, and even charity itself seemed frightened from giving assistance. The priest was, of course, busy; and, fortunately for Aston, more than one priest could be had to attend the dying.