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ANNIE O’BRIEN---A True Story:
HE “Connaught Castle” had arriv
ed in New York. The cabin pas
sengers had gone ashore. The
steerage people were being carried
away by their friends, or by the
boarding-house-keepers, who al
ways lie in wait for them. Those
yet uncalled for sat about the
decks. Wistful eyes turned shore-
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ward, anxious to see a familiar face and form
among all those strange ones.
Pat Nolan had come aboard in all his brav
ery—a new blue coat flung open, that it might
not conceal the shining watch-chain dangling
from his vest-pocket, his hat tipped to one side
in true Connaught fashion, with a mighty show
of white collar and cuffs and blue neck-tie, and
his boots for once polished by an “Eyetalian.”
He threw his shoulders back, and looked his
best, for “didn’t he come aboard to bring his
sweetheart, Annie O’Brien, home, and wasn’t
she the prettiest girl in ten counties, and hadn’t
she crossed the ocean for his sake?”
Pat felt as though every one who saw him
must know his business there.
Standing still he looked about him, expect
ing to see his little Annie somewhere not far.
“Sure, an’ wouldn’t she be as anxious to mate
him as he would be to mate her?” But strange
to say he could not see her.
He was a little late, for there had been a de
lay of the train in which he came down from
the place where he was working as coachman
and gardener. But, surely, Annie would never
have gone ashore without him. He walked
about for full ten minutes, looking everywhere,
but still missing the face he wanted.
Every now and then a gay ribbon or a bright
coil of hair would make his heart dance, but it
was never Annie’s hair or Annie’s bonnet. At
last he made up his mind that she had gone
ashore; but in that case she had left word for
him, of course —word where she had betaken
herself.
“I beg pardon, sir,” he said, stepping up to
a man who wore a gold band upon his cap, and
was presumably an officer—“l beg pardon, sir,
but I’m Pat Nolan. Is there a bit of a mes
sage left for me, do you know, sir?”
“Not that I am aware,” the officer replied.
“It was Annie O’Brien,” said Pat. “She
came over on this steamer she expected me to
mate her. We’re to be married; you know, sir,
and she’d lave word where she is gone—Annie
0 ’Brien. ’ ’
The officer turned a curious, startled gaze up
on him.
“Annie O’Brien,” he repeated. “ steerage
passenger?”
“In coorse, sir,” said Pat. “She’s cornin’ over
to marry me, and she’s a workin’ girl. We’re
nayther iv us rich.”
The officer looked at him again.
“I know the name,” he said.
“You couldn’t help noticing the girl,” said
Pat. “She’s a purty crayther, is Annie, wid
eyes like the sky and golden hair, and a waist
ye could span wid yer two hands —barrin’ she
would permit ye to do it—and a foot light as a
bird’s upon the floor. A little jewel is my An
nie. You’d not fail to notice her.”
“Sit down a foment, Mr. Nolan,” said the
officer. “I will make some inquiries. Wait
here for me.”
“A mighty polite gentleman, though he’s as
solemn as a funeral,” said Pat to himself. “I
hope he’ll not delay long. I’m wild to see
Annie. Oh, the divil fly away wid the cars
that kept me from her! I wonder is she cryin’
her eyes out for not seein’ me? It was what
she had a right to expect—the first one aboard.”
The officer was returning.
He looked more serious than ever.
“Mr. Nolan,” he said gravely, “the captain
should like to speak to you. I will take you
The Golden Age for January 16,1913.
to him. We have had a very stormy voyage,
as winter voyages often are.”
“But you have come into port on as pleasant
a day as there is in the calendar,” Pat said,
cheerfully. “A Christmas couldn’t be bright
er.”
“But we have had a very unpleasant voy
age,” said the officer, gravely.
He opened the door of the captain’s cabin.
Pat entered with his hat in his hand.
The captain, a grave, bronzed man, with iron
gray hair, sat at a table before an open book, on
which his hand lay.
“Sit down,” he said.
“Thank you, sir. It’s as easy standing,”
said Pat, with a bow.
“You had better sit down,” said the cap
tain. “I may have to talk to you for some
minutes. I have something very particular to
say if you are the right man. Your name is—”
“Pat Nolan,” said Pat, beginning to feel as
tonished; but then perhaps the captain, know
ing that he was to be married that evening,
wanted to congratulate him, to offer him a glass
of something, or perhaps, it was the way of the
captains of ocean steamers’to be slow and sol
emn, not thinking how he kept people from
OCEANUS HYEMALIS.
By Alfred W. Bennett.
The waves that now, with sullen roar,
Break upon this lonely shore,
Fill my heart with sadness,
Thinking of the gladness
That seems gone for evermore;
Thinking of the laughter gay
Os the children, blithe as May,
Whose rosy feet were glancing,
O’er the wet sands dancing,
To meet the gentle ripplet’s play.
Sad and silent are the sands
Where the merry groups joined hands.
Naught is heard, except the moaning
As of fettered spirits groaning,
Bound by Winter’s icy hands.
Yet though, beneath this sky of lead,
Joy seems crushed and well-nigh dead,
And the spirits weary,
Desolate and dreary,
Feels as if all hope were fled;
Over this tempestuous main
Summer suns will shine again.
Children’s happy voices singing,
0 ’er the laughing ocean ringing,
Bring peace to weary heart and brain.
A-.—--.-.-4
their sweethearts. So Pat sat down, put his
hat on the floor, and, not knowing just what
to do, cracked all his knuckles one after the
other as he waited.
“Your name is Patrick Nolan,” said the cap
tain again, “and you came on board to find a
young woman —a friend of yours?”
“My sweetheart promised to me. We are
to be married today,” said Pat.
“If God wills it,” said the captain.
“Ay, sir; we can do nothing widout that, I
well know,” said Pat. “The good Lord above
and Father Dunn will help me; but I’ll do the
best I can to furder it myself.”
The captain look down upon the pages of the
book before him.
“And the name of the young girl you are
asking for?” he said.
“Annie O’Brien,” said Pat, beginning to
think the captain very stupid—“ Annie
0 ’Brien. She’s the Widdy 0 ’Brien’s daughter
—a decent woman is the widdy, and well re
spected. They are neighbors there at home
in the ould counthry.”
The captain ran his finger down a long col
umn of names, and stopped at last and looked
at Pat again.
“We had a very unpleasant voyage,” he said,
slowly, “a very, very unpleasant voyage.”
“The other gentleman was telling me that,
sir,” said Pat, wishing that this old gentleman
would stop talking about the weather and tell
him something about Annie. “Bad weather,
must be a threat on the say,” he said, in order
to be polite. “And wid all thim passengers to
be watchin’ and carin’ so than a sta
bleful of bastes!”
“Yes,” said the captain, “we try to care for
our passengers; but the steerage is a little
crowded. They are often very sick.”
“Yes, sir. I was that sick myself I thought
I be dyin’,” said Pat.
“Some are severely ill,” said the captain.
This time Pat made no answer but stared at
him with a hot flush rising to his face.
“Sometimes they are so very ill that they
die,” the captain went on. “Delicate women,
you know —little children and delicate women.”
Pat still looked at him in silence.
“When I said that we had a very unpleasant
voyage I mean that” —said the captain—“that
we had serious illness —that we had death on
board. Two steerage passengers died. One
was William O’Rourke, an old man, coming
over to live with his son.”
“God rest his soul,” said Pat, crossing his
forehead.
“The other, who was very ill, was a woman,”
said the captain—“a young woman, and very
pretty. . Mr. Nolan, we have to prepare for
storms in life—we have to brace up and bear
them as well as we can. They are very hard
to bear. I have had a great many myself. At
my age that goes without saying; but you are
young and full of hope. lam very sorry to
say that I am afraid you are about to suffer
a terrible shock. It is a painful task to tell
you. Brace up, my lad. The other passenger
was a young woman, and her name, as we have
it written here, was Annie O’Brien.”
All the color had gone out of Pat’s face by
this time. It was white, lips and all. He
dropped his arms on the table, and hid his
face on them, and great sobs shook his frame.
The captain wiped the tears from his own
eyes.
“Talk does no good,” he said. “Time only
can comfort you.”
“It seems as if I could not believe it, cap
tain,” Pat cried, lifting his tear-swollen face.
“Annie—my little Annie 1 Are you sure it was
Annie?”
‘There was but one Annie O’Brien on our
list,” said the captain. “She gave her name
just before she breathed her last. The only
steerage passenger of the name O’Brien, died
on the voyage of a fever. The doctor cared
for her as well as he knew how. The women
nursed her kindly. We buried her at sea,
and the burial service was said by a Catholic
clergyman who was on board. You might like
to know that, so I tell you.”
“My Annie—my Annie at the bottom of the
say! ’ ’ moaned poor Nolan. “An ’ I ’ll never see
her again; niver kiss her red lips; niver feel
her two arms about me neck! Ah, Ahnie, I
won’t live after you—l won’t live after you!
Life is too hard to bear wid that to think of.
It’s turned me to a woman, sir, I’m thinkin’-
but it’s the worst blow I iver had in me loife.”
There was a knock at the door just then.
Pat hid his tear-stained face again.
No admittance just now,” cried the cap
tain.
“I didn’t mane to come in, please, sir ” said
a sweet voice; “but I’d like to speak to ye cap
tain, as ye’ll let me. I’m waitin’ this iong
time till me frind comes aboord to bring me
home, and I’m gettin’ anxious, fearin’ somflr
(Continued on Pago 8,)
By MARY ELLIS
