A RETUNRED EMIGRANT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 17, 23 August 1895, Page 21

A RETUNRED EMIGRANT.

(By X tharine Tynak Hinkson, in the Axe Maria) And vow Miss Booaers was dead, and Mary returned forlornly toKilclocney. She had an idea that, since her mistresi was gone and the cottage in the hands of strangers, there was no homelike place in all tke world except the valley of her childhood. Miss Somers had left her comfortably provided for ; and in her bosom— which contained a few locks of hair, the relics of her dead— she had a cheque on a London bank for a considerable sum, as well as the notes and coins in her old purae. She came back steerage as she had gone. It never occurred to her to tr.vel any other way ; and her fellow passengers, jubilantly going home, had no idea of the posperity of the poor, old woman who sat in a daged way on a campstool all day looking in a foTlorn way out to sea. One or two motherly dames thought her scarcely fit to be travelling alone ; bat their advances were received in so abient-minded a way that they were discouraged and tried no more ; only hoping " the creature will have some one to see her when she lands." The big boat swept past Qaeenstown in a hurricane, and landed no passengers. Mary saw the coast of Ireland far in the distance,, and feit a return of fear in her beart ; but she was not well, and on^ this voyage had been feeling herself very old and weak. It was very late at night when they got into the Liverpool docks. Mary landed with the rest of the passengers in the darkness. She bad a confused idea of asking some of them to see her to a hotel ; but one littlo family party and another hustled by her, and the had not the enterprise to ask. She trud*«d through tbe docks io the direction she bud seen them taking. There would be vehicles at the dock gates,. * and she would be driven to a respectable lodging for the night Then her head began to swim worse than ever, and she stopped to* res'. Bhe felt the dock floor going up and down beneath her more dizzily than tbe big ship, the noise of whose screw was throbbing in her ear. She leaned against the wall, and beat tbe air with her bands Then she dropped down, and lay motionless under tbe thick mist of* ram. • • ♦ • Bhe awoke to find a small, anxious-looking boy holding a flicker* ing match to her face. "Get op, nn'amt" he was saying. " Sure what are you doing lying out in the d»cks a night lika this ? If I hado't fallen over your bundle, I'd go bail you'd be a dead woman in tbe mornin?." Mary tried to get up and fnund she was very stiff. The boy assisted her with curious, old-fashioned good manners. When she sat up she told him as well as she could what had happened to her.

near, dear, "Baid the boy, commiseratingly. " Sura you'd better come home home to my mother for what's left of tha night. We're Irish like yourself r and you'd be safe with-us, ma'am; and it's more than you'd be outside tbe/dock gates." He assisted her to her feet very carefully, and Mary thought to herself m all her stupefaction, that he must have a mother he wds in the habit of seeing after. He lifted her bundle still watchiog her with the same anxious gaze. Mary leaned on his shoulder, and they proceeded by very slow stages toward the rest and shelter she desired so eagerly ; for she felt very cold and tired. Mrs Nolan lived inside the docks. Her husband had been a dock watchman, and had been greatly esteemed for his honesty and attention to duty. So when he walked off the dock wall one night in a dense fog, the directors gave his widow a little cottage within the dock gates and took on her Joe, fourteen years of age, for varicns odd jobs. He assisted at the unloading of cargo ; but the men, who fell kindly toward their dead comrade's boy, took care not to task his strength unduly— a necessary precaution, for Joe was eager to work, and wonld willingly have strained himself in his good will There were three or four little ones to be provided for, and he was the only wage earner ; so Mrs Nolan bad of cen a hard time enongh-though she did little jobs of washing and sewing for the men, to earn a little money, However, Joe and his mother were quite content with their lot Mrs Nolan was a simple Irish peasant, who had never coasad to be horrified at the speech and behaviour of the women she met with after she had married and come to Liverpool. The men, however, rough as they were, had more fjraca to respect her almost childish innocence. So after Patrick was gone, ond she removed into the docks, she cAme to look on lier little cottage as a haven of rtfuge Of course there were snorting engines and wide basins of water to' be feared for Phelim and Hugh, and, but then, they were old-fashioned quiet children, with no taste for adventure ; and when she had left them in a little lean-to shed at the back of the cottage with their broken bits of crockery to play shop, Bhe was pretty sure they would not wander. Mrs No'an's experience of her own kind in Liverpo il had been such that the high dock walls seemed to her safety from sin and shame ; and in her little house she set up her crucifix, a statue of the Holy Virgii, and her holy water font, and felt as if she were in Ireland again. The children were in bed, and she was sitting by tha fire this night, waiting for Joe. It was something of a troublo to her that her litite bny bad to work so late and so incessantly, and had to give up his schooling at which ha was doiag we'l. She had a bit of food under a hot plate by the fire, and a small table drawn up to it. Joe was a little later than he oiten wa_», but his mother was not anxious. She knew how wise aad ctrefal he was, and cauld trust him. Presenily there cama hia voice and tap at tha door, noisier than usual ; for he never forgot that he must not wake the little ones. Mrs Nolan s'epped to the door and opened it, then started aghast. " Glory to God, Joe I" she said, " who have you got with you 7" Joe aߣisted Alary inside, and then siid : " Only a poor soal I found wanderiDg round the docks by ber lone self. She came off the Persia to-night aad fainted jn the docks, and there was no one to see to her. So when I found her I br^ujbt her home to you. "You're kindly welcome, ma'am," sud Mrs Nolan, helping her guest to a chair by the fir<>, into whicb^Mary sank exhausted. And then the kindly woman hustled about to get her something warm to drink. The hot tea revived Mary, who soon sat spreading out her feeble hands to the blaze. She was pleasantly consciou3 of the warmth and shelter, and l;oked around appreciatively at the clean little houee with its religious emblem *, that recalled Kilclooney village long ago in the morning of her life. " I'll be moving en ia the morning," she uaid. " I'm on my way to Ireland, an \ I'm grateful to you for the night's shelter, and the kindness of yoursslf and your boy." Mra Nolan louked at her pityingly. She did not think her guest would be able to travel by morning, but she replied cheerfully that it was a very good and pleasant thing to be going home to Ireland.

Presently, when Mary began to nod in the firelight, she partially undreßsed her and pnt her to sleep in the bed beside the fire-in the' , warm, place ac her. own side vacated by. little Hagh, whom Joe took in for thi night. After they were in bed, Mrs Nolan lay awake looking at the flickering shadows from the driftwood fire cast' upon r the ceiling, She had some anxious thoughts about the woman 'beside her, who looked so ill and worn. She seemed too poor to be able to pay for her keep, though she had spoken of going on to Ireland, and the Nolans could ill afford another inmate. However, Mrs Volan was comforted, thinking of. the night the Mother-of God was refused' a shelter at the inns of Bethlehem. "I'll keep her in God's name," she thought, " if the poor e'oul is going to fall sick on my hands, as seems more' than likely, He won't let the children suffer." ' " " ' CTo be oonolv.ded.')