THE STORY OF ANNIE LEE AND HER IRISH NURSE.

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York 1913

Annorah turned, and saw the shadow of a man on the sloping rock. Page 25.

[Pg 5]

CHAPTER I.

ANNIE’S PLAN.

Annie Lee was a cripple. Until her eighth summer she had been strong and well, like most other children; but then disease began to appear, and although she had skilful doctors and kind nurses, it was soon too plain that she was never to be well again.

Five years of pain and weakness had been her portion at the time our story commences. So accustomed had she become to her sad situation, that it seemed like a delusive dream when she remembered the sportive hours of her earlier childhood. Like other sick children, she was far more thoughtful than was quite natural at [Pg 6] her age, and very seldom in her easiest moments laughed aloud. But she was not an unhappy child.

As soon as she was old enough to understand that she had a sinful heart and needed salvation, she had earnestly sought the Saviour of sinners, and had been graciously received by him, and made a lamb of his flock. In the school of Christ she learned to bear pain without murmuring, and to submit with cheerfulness to her lot in life. Instead of requiring comfort from her parents, who seemed to realize her misfortune more fully than she did herself, she became their consoler, and rarely failed in her efforts to lighten their sorrow on her account.

“It might have been so much worse, mamma,” she said one day, when Mrs. Lee was lamenting her condition. “Only think of poor lame Phelim, Biddy Dillon’s little boy.”

“What is the matter with him?” asked her mother.

“Have you not seen him? He is often in the back-yard when Biddy comes to wash in the kitchen. I’ve watched him often. I think it was before he came to this country—but I’m not sure—that a large stone, falling from a wall, so mangled his poor limbs that one of them had to be cut off. I never see him limping about on [Pg 7] his crutches while Biddy is washing without thanking God for my happier fate.”

“Why, Annie, it is not probable that he suffers one-half as much as you do.”

“As much pain, do you mean, mamma?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that. They are very poor; and if he lives to be a man, how can he earn the comforts of life? I need have no care on that account.”

“I daresay he has none. There are several trades that he might learn which require a sitting posture; he might be a shoemaker, for instance. Do not fret on his account, Annie.”

“It seems to me, mamma,” replied Annie, with a thoughtful air, “that his only prospect for the future is to be pushed about here and there in the crowd, until at last he finds a refuge in the grave.”

“What foolish fancies!” said Mrs. Lee, rising, as a noise in the yard below attracted her to the window. “We know nothing about the future, and it is not quite right to make ourselves sad about it. It is hardly like your usual trust in God, to be thus imagining trouble. There’s a little lame boy in the yard, who, I suppose, is Phelim; he seems happy enough. Hark! don’t you hear him sing? He is sitting on the bench [Pg 8] behind the clothes-frame, and his mother is hanging out the clothes to dry. Don’t you hear her laugh at what he is singing?”

“What is it, mamma? Can you hear the words?” asked Annie, brightening up, and raising herself on her elbow as she lay on her low couch.

“I hear them very well; but his Irish gibberish is as Greek to me. All that I can make out is what seems to be the chorus:

“Mamma,” said Annie, after listening with smiling interest a while, “it troubles me very often because Phelim knows nothing about our Saviour. He has a sister, two years older than I am, who cannot read. She never went to school; and none of the family can read a word.”

“How did you learn this?”

“From Phelim. I speak to him sometimes when he plays under the window.”

“Well, I don’t know how we can help them. If we should offer to teach them, they would not be willing to learn.”

“Are you sure of it, mamma?”

“Not quite so sure, perhaps, as if I had tried to instruct them; but I know that they regard a book as a sort of Protestant trap, made on [Pg 9] purpose to catch them, soul and body. It is an evil that we cannot remedy.—Have you more pain than usual, my dear?” said Mrs. Lee, appearing a little startled, and bending anxiously over Annie’s couch as she observed an unusual flush on her pale cheek.

“No, mamma; but I was thinking of a plan that I have had for some weeks, and hoping that you would not object to it.”

“Object! You shall have whatever you like, if it can be procured. What is it, Annie?”

“Oh, dear mamma,” said Annie, “I do so long to do some good! I cannot bear to live such a useless life. Every day, when I feel the goodness of God and his great love to me, I long to do something for him. And I think, mamma, that I have planned a way to do good without getting off my sofa.”

“You are always doing good, Annie. Do you suppose that your patience under suffering is not a lesson to us in our smaller trials? There are many ways in which you are a blessing to us all; so do not weary yourself with new schemes. If God had required active service from you, he would have given you health and strength.”

“But I can do something, mamma. Please to hear my plan. I want to tell you something [Pg 10] more about Phelim’s sister. She has been Mrs. Green’s servant, and her business was to assist in the nursery. She would have done nicely, Phelim says, but for her violent temper. Last week one of the children was cross and provoking, and the girl got angry and pushed him down-stairs. He was much bruised; and, of course, she was dismissed at once.”

“I should hope so. But your plan, Annie?”

“The poor girl has no place, mamma, and, with such a dreadful temper, is not likely to get one soon. And they are very poor. I know that since Jessie left us, you are too closely confined here with me; and my plan is to have this poor girl to wait on me, and—”

“Why, Annie, what a wild project!” interrupted her mother. “You must not think of it. She would be throwing you out of the window, or beating you to a jelly, in her first fit of ill-temper.”

“Oh no, she won’t, mamma,” urged Annie. “She will not be so easily vexed here, and no one is ever angry with me. Please to try her.”

“Are you really in earnest, Annie?”

“Yes; and very anxious to be indulged in my strange plan.”

“Have you thought how awkward she will be in assisting you?”

[Pg 11] “I have thought of it all, over and over,” replied Annie, “and I think she will make a good nurse for me.”

Mrs. Lee hesitated a long time. She could not bear to deny Annie, and could not overcome her dislike to the proposed arrangement. But Annie’s pleading look at length decided her.

“You wish very much to try this wild-goose plan!” she said, resuming the conversation.

“Very much, mamma,” replied Annie.

“Well, you shall have your own way about it. It will last but a few days, I am sure; and the change will interest you at any rate, poor thing!” Then going to the window, she looked down into the yard, and said, “Mrs. Dillon, come up to Miss Annie’s room, will you?”

In a minute the woman made her appearance at the door, with the suds still lingering in foamy flakes upon her arms and along the folds of her apron.

“You have a daughter, I believe?” said Mrs. Lee.

“Two of them, an’ ye plaze, ma’am,” replied Biddy, wiping her arms as she spoke.

“Are they both at home?”

“It’s Bessie that is in service; and it’s only Annorah that’s at home, shure.”

[Pg 12] “What is Annorah doing?” inquired Mrs. Lee.

“Doing?” repeated Biddy wonderingly.

“I mean, how does she get her living?”

“At service too, ma’am, when it is to be had. But, shure, it’s a bad timper she has, and will sthrike and scold whin her blood is up. An’ she has lost the fine, comfortable place she had with Mrs. Green, jist for a thrifle of spaach.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“Oh, thin, ye may well say that. Anither mouth in a family like me own is far from convenient whin the cost of the mate and the flour is beyond raach intirely.”

“Well, Biddy, Miss Annie wants some one to wait on her in the place of Jessie, who has gone. She has taken a fancy to try your girl. When can she come?”

“Coom! Why, this very hour, an’ ye like. A blessin’ on yer swate, pale face!” said Biddy, looking pityingly towards Annie.

“She must be gentler here,” said Mrs. Lee; “she must govern her temper. Miss Annie must not be excited and made worse by your girl’s fits of ill-humour.”

“Leave her to me, mamma,” said Annie. “I think, Mrs. Dillon, that there will be no trouble. What did you say is her name?”

“Annorah, an’ ye plaze, miss.”

[Pg 13] “Annorah? Very well. When shall she come, mamma?”

“Not until Monday, I think,” replied Mrs. Lee. Then turning to Mrs. Dillon, she added, “You may send her on Monday.”

“An’ she gets a mad streak along o’ that pritty crathur,” said Mrs. Biddy, as she went down-stairs, “she desarves the warm bating she’ll get from her own mother at home.”

CHAPTER II.

ANNORAH’S FIRST APPEARANCE IN THE SICK-ROOM.

Monday came, and Annorah came too. It was with a doubting heart and a troubled look that Mrs. Lee introduced her into her daughter’s chamber. It would be difficult to find a plainer-looking or a more awkward girl.

Mrs. Lee looked at the monstrous foot in its heavy shoe, and at the thick, freckled hands, that seemed incapable of the gentle services that Annie’s helplessness required, and wondered at her own folly in indulging the singular caprice of her daughter. But a single look at Annie assured her that she, at least, felt no misgivings. Still, she did not like to leave them by themselves until she had tested the new attendant’s ability.

[Pg 14] “Annorah,” she said, “what sort of work can you do? I’m afraid you are not used to such services as Miss Annie will require.”

“I can do most anything, ma’am,” answered the girl resolutely.

“Indeed! Well, let me see how you would manage to place Annie on the bed when she is tired of the sofa.”

The words were scarcely out of her mouth before Annorah had lifted the frail form of the invalid in her arms and deposited her in the middle of the bed. Annie burst into such a laugh as she had not indulged in for a year.

“I think you may be satisfied, mamma,” she said; “I never was moved easier.”

Mrs. Lee began to think better of Annie’s plan, and joined quite cordially in her daughter’s mirth.

“And if she were too tired to rest in any position, what would you do?”

“Carry her to the windows, or out in the air, for a change.—Will ye plaze to thry it, Miss Annie?”

“Not now, Annorah.” Then looking towards her mother, she said, “Mamma, you may be easy; Annorah and I shall get on famously together.”

Thus assured, Mrs. Lee left them, and went [Pg 15] down-stairs with a better opinion of the rough Irish girl than she had thought it possible to entertain an hour previous.

Left by themselves, the two girls began to form an acquaintance with each other. Two persons more unlike could not have been brought together. Annorah was evidently much interested in her young charge, and felt the most unbounded sympathy in her sufferings. Annie spoke first.

“Please draw my couch nearer the window, Annorah. That will do. Now, sit down on this low stool, and tell me how long it is since you left Ireland.”

“It’s two years, miss, coom April.”

“So lately? Then you remember all about the old country?”

“Remember! An’ it’s me that’ll niver forget that same. The beautiful counthree it is!”

“Pleasanter than this, do you think?”

“A thousand times. There is no place in the world like it; the dear ould counthree!”

“Why, then, did you leave it, Annorah?”

“Bad luck we had, miss; and a worse luck intirely here, the mane town that this is.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“What for? That ye, too, may laugh like the rest, and call us the mane, dirty set of Irish [Pg 16] vagabonds?” asked the girl, her small eyes kindling with a sense of imaginary insult.

“No, no, Annorah. You don’t think I would say such things, do you? But you need not tell me a word if you had rather not. I only thought it would make me forget my pain for a little time; and, besides, I love dearly to hear about Ireland, or any place where I have never been,” said Annie, with a tone of voice so calm and earnest that the girl could not doubt her sincerity.

“Do you, in truth? Why, thin, it’s me that’ll talk till I hoarse meself dumb for yer good. It was the famine, miss, that came first, and stole the bit o’ food that was saved. The praties were rotten in the field; and the poor pigs starved that should have helped us out wi’ the rint. Och, but it was a sore time o’ grief whin sorra a mouthful were left for the bit childer and the ould people who were weak before wi’ ould age! In the worst time o’ all, whin the need was the sorest, our Bessie got into disgrace, and came home from service wi’ niver a penny to help herself or us. There was nought to do and nought to eat at all. The neighbours were faint wi’ the hoonger; and so, before the worst came, we left all that was dear and came here.”

[Pg 17] “How many of you came, Annorah?”

“Nine, miss, if we consider our uncles and cousins. We did not come altogether; brother John, who is dead, and uncle Mike, came first. And a fine chance to work they got directly, miss; and then they sent money to pay the old folk’s passage. Our hearts gathered coorage and strength at once, miss, and we thought, shure, the great throubles were over. But the next vessel brought the bad news for us, and we forgot the glimmer of hope we had; for it was our own father dear who was dead o’ the cholera.”

“Poor Annorah!” exclaimed Annie pityingly.

“Poor indade! But soon came the money for the rest; and much as we feared the deep wathers, the hoonger still pressed on us, and the sickness was every day striking down the stoutest, and so we all left Ireland but Bessie.”

“Did you like the passage across from Ireland?”

“No, indade.”

“Were you sea-sick?”

“No, miss. But we came in the steerage; and a crowded, dirthy place it was. The dirt was not so bad, for in the ould counthree it ofttimes gets the betther o’ us; but the men were either drunk or ill-nathured, and the women [Pg 18] quarrelled, and the young ones were aye cross or sick; and a bad time they made of it all.”

“Did you come directly here?”

“No; we stayed where we landed for seven weeks, till we got word to our cousin.”

“And since you have been here, Annorah, what have you been doing? Have you been to school?”

“No; the praste forbade.”

“Poor thing! Then you cannot read?”

“How should I know reading, I’d like to know? Who would teach me that same?”

“Many good people would like to do it, if you would like to learn.”

“I’m ower knowin’ for that, miss,” replied Annorah, with a glance which betrayed that she was rather suspicious of Annie’s good intentions. “It’s a mighty pity that readin’ was contrived at all, for it’s the books that makes the black heretics o’ us. ‘Let alone the books and the readin’,’ said Father M‘Clane to me last evening, ‘and confess to me faithfully all that ye hear in the grand Protestant family, an’ all will go well wi’ ye, Annorah,’ says he, ‘now and for evermore.’”

Annie laughed pleasantly. “And so you are to play the spy and the tattler; and however kindly we may treat you, you are to report all [Pg 19] our sayings and doings to the priest? I don’t believe, Annorah, that you can be mean enough for that, if you try. I thought the Irish people were too generous to act so low a part.”

“An’ so we are, shure. Sorra a bit will the praste get from me about you here.”

“If he were a good man, a noble, honourable man,” said Annie, “do you think he would ask you—”

“He’s the praste!” interrupted Annorah, her eyes flashing; “the praste, is Father M‘Clane. An’ ye mind to spake well o’ him, it’s nought I’ve to say; an’ the tongue is a heretic’s that would spake ill o’ him, and he laving the ould counthree to stay for our good in this haythen land. An’ the books an’ the readin’ were for the like o’ us, would he not be the first to bid us welcome to the same? Och, it’s a good man and a holy is Father M‘Clane, say what ye will, miss.”

“I have not called him otherwise,” said Annie, much amused by the Irish girl’s warmth. “I only asked you, or tried to ask you, if he would be likely to require you to tattle and to be a tell-tale, if he were so good as you describe him?”

“It were jist putting before me eyes the maneness of the man. Is that nothing at all, and he a praste?”

“Well, well, Annorah, we will say no more [Pg 20] about him now. I am tired, and must rest. You won’t mind being still a while?”

“Poor little thing!” said Annorah; “ye’re pale as a lily. Is there a dhrap o’ anything ye would like, and then slape a bit?”

“I will try to sleep.”

“But ye cannot kape still. The pain is shure too great. Let me carry you about a little.”

“No, no; it would tire you,” said Annie, who in her spasm of pain really longed for so novel a method of changing her position.

“At least, let me thry it for once,” urged the girl, whose Irish sympathies were powerfully awakened by her young mistress’s evident suffering; “jist for once, darlin’.”

Annie offered no further resistance, and, as Annorah bore her light form carefully up and down the room, experienced a feeling of relief that inspired her with warm gratitude toward her uncouth attendant.

“Ye’re light as down, honey,” said Annorah, as she met Annie’s anxious, inquiring look.

Satisfied at last that she was really no heavy burden, the weary invalid soon dropped asleep, with her head on the Irish girl’s shoulder. Mrs. Lee opened the door and looked in.

“Whist!” said Annorah, in a low, impatient [Pg 21] whisper. “Kape quiet, will ye, and let the poor lamb slape!”

Mrs. Lee hardly knew whether to be amused or provoked as she, the mistress of the house, obeyed Annorah’s imperative gesture, and withdrew softly from the apartment.

CHAPTER III.

ANNORAH LEARNS TO READ.

In a very few days Annie was intrusted to the sole care of her young Irish nurse, who served her with the most affectionate attention. Mrs. Lee often came to sit with her suffering child, but Annorah alone performed the tender offices of the sick-room. Rough and uncouth as she was, she readily adapted herself to the services required; and no power on earth could have persuaded her that Annie could be so well taken care of by any one else.

“It naded a dale o’ contrivance, to be shure,” she said to her mother one afternoon, when, Annie being asleep, she ran home to ask after the family, “or I would be well bothered with all her pretty talk o’ books, and taching me to read and write; but she, poor darlin’, shall say whatever she plazes to me.”

[Pg 22] “An’ if she spake ill o’ the praste and the holy Church, how then, Annorah?” asked Mrs. Dillon, eying her daughter rather curiously.

“Blessed little good can we say o’ Father M‘Clane, whin we spake truth, as ye know, mother dear; and it’s not to be expected o’ her to tell lies for his sake.”

“Does she spake o’ the Catholic Church Norah?” asked her mother.