Read Ebook: Live to be Useful or The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse by Anonymous

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Ebook has 299 lines and 15826 words, and 6 pages

I had to move her face to one side in order to inhale, and the instant I did so she swayed and her elbows descended on my chest.

A chill coursed through me. Her arms were rigid and she seemed almost weightless. Alarmed, I rose, grasped her wrists and eased her gently down into the chair.

She just sat there staring up at me, her face a petrified mask and her body so utterly still that it did something to sound. In place of the faint susurrous which occupied space gives forth the chair seemed to be enveloped in a kind of auditory vacuum which chilled me to the core of my being.

I can't remember how long I stood there with horror slapping at my brain like the tides of some cold, dead moon. I only know that I turned in 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."

"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 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 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 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 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.

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."

"An' if she spake ill o' the praste and the holy Church, how then, Annorah?" asked Mrs. Dillon, eying her daughter rather curiously.

"Does she spake o' the Catholic Church Norah?" asked her mother.

"Never at all, mother; so make yer heart aisy. She spakes to me o' meself, and the wickedness in me heart; and when she leans so lovingly on me shoulder, and raises her clear eyes to the blue sky, or watches the bright sunset, and spakes so softly to me o' the beauty o' a holy life, I feel all the betther and patienter meself for hearing the good words. She says, mother dear, as how it is depravity that makes me so often angered and wrong; and how that Jesus Christ, the Son o' God himself, died to save us and cure us o' our sin. It would do yer own heart good, could ye hear her; and there's nought wrong in it at all, ye see."

Annie's influence grew stronger and stronger, and not a day passed without some precious truth from her lips finding a place in the heart of her attendant. It was many weeks before Annorah yielded to her persuasions, and commenced learning to read. The pleasant summer days had come, and they were often abroad in the fresh air together, Annie in her low carriage, which was easily drawn by her young nurse.

Down in the valley behind Mr. Lee's house there was an old mill, long since deserted and unused.

This was a favourite resort of Annie's, and it was here that she taught Annorah to read, during the long summer afternoons.

At first Annorah was listless, indifferent, and often suspicious that all this attention to her education boded no good to her old religious prejudices. But she could deny Annie nothing; and after a time, as her confidence in the piety of her gentle teacher increased, she began to feel a deep interest in the truths taught.

In her anxiety to please her invalid charge, she made rapid progress in reading, and before the end of the summer could write a few plain sentences. She began to love knowledge for its own sake; and many a pleasant hour did she spend, when Annie was asleep or weary, in reading the easy lessons selected for her. But she was careful that neither her mother nor the priest should suspect her progress in learning, and as she still went regularly to "confession," it was easy to keep her secret from them. Annie was often not a little puzzled to know how she managed to elude the vigilance of the priest.

It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, when the air was just cool enough to be refreshing, that, with Mrs. Lee's permission, Annie and her nurse sought their favourite seat by the mill-stream. Annie had been thinking more than usual about Annorah's progress in religious knowledge, and wondering how, with the light and wisdom she had received, she could still cling to her old superstitions. A great change had taken place in her temper, which was now usually controlled; her manners had gradually become more gentle; but the radical change of heart that Annie so longed to witness, did not yet show itself.

"Tell me, Annorah," she said, after the usual time had been spent in reading, "does Father M'Clane know that you can read yet?"

"Not he, indade."

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