Then we saw it all. The girl was starving. I caught her up in my arms—she was no heavier than many a baby—a bag of bones—and I ran with her to the house, crying to my wife to hurry and get something ready. Had ye seen her look at the food as my wife brought it out of the cellar, with the eye of a wild beast, you would have shivered. “Draw in,” says I, “it’s coorse, but it is the best we have, an there’s plenty av it.”
“Is the mate for me?” she asks doubtful like.
“Surely,” says I.
“I havn’t put a tooth mark on mate for three years,” says she simple like.
I reached her a rib of cold boiled pork and she smiled for the first time, and sucked it as a child does the orange it wants to have the taste of as long as possible. When she had eaten as much as my wife thought safe, she took and laid her on our own bed, and willing she was, for she was clean beat out, and went to sleep when her head touched the pillow. Then we had a talk. She had come from the fever sheds and might give the disease to the children, who had gone berrying, so I goes, as agreed on, and meets them, tells them of their new cousin from Ireland, who had come to us sick, and takes them to stay with a neighbor for the night. Next morning I off to the hay before sunrise and worked excited like till the sun got high and overpowering, when I says to myself, “I’ll take a rest and go and see my brother’s child.” She was sitting at the door, where the hops clustered round her, and looked another crathur. The fearsome glare of hunger in the eye was gone and there was a glint of color in the cheek as she rose to welcome me. “You don’t think me mad today, uncle?” she asks me. “God forgive me,” says I, “for the word—.” With that she puts her hand over my mouth. Oh she was the kindly crathur, and now that she was clean and fresh dressed I could see would be a handsome lass when there was more mate on her bones. My wife had been looking for my coming and had the table spread, and after we had eaten we sat again in the shade at the door and as I smoked my pipe Ellen told her story. It was, more the pity, a common enough one in those days. The failure of the potatoes had left my brother unable to get enough for his family to eat let alone pay the rent. On the back of the hunger came sickness and when things had got to be as bad as they could, the agent comes round and tells him if he would give up his houlding and go to Canada the landlord would forgive him the rent, pay the passage-money and a pound ahead on landing at Quebec. He took the offer as his neighbors did and went to Dublin, where they found a ship waiting for them. They were not out of sight of land when the fever broke out and the children, one after another, took it, and three died at sea. When quarantine was reached they were all sent ashore, and there the rest of the children, saving Ellen, died, with the father and mother. When the fever left her she was put on board a steamer for Montreal, and got sorra a bite from the hour she left until she landed, though it took the boat 36 hours. Faint and sick she was hurried ashore and when she made for the city a policeman turned her back and she sat down on the wharf, wishing to die. By and by a man comes along and by his dress she knew he was a minister, though not of our sort. He spoke to her and she told him she wanted to get to me, and showed my address on a bit of paper she carried in her bosom. He read it and saying to follow him, led to a steamer lying in the canal. He sought out the captain and told him to take the girl and land her at Beauharnois, and the captain promised he would to oblige the minister and refused the dollar he offered. The stranger handed it to her with the words, “I must leave you, for others are perishing,” and slipped away before she could thank him. That evening she was landed at Beauharnois and when the steamer left the wharf for the Cascades she felt more lost than ever, for she heard nothing but French, and not a word she understood. She spied a man putting bags of flour in a cart with a face that she thought was that of an Old Countryman. She went up to him and he answered her in English, or rather Scotch, for I know him well; he lives near the Meadows. She told where she wanted to go. “You’ll be ane o’ thae emigrants,” says he, “an may hae the fever.” “I’ve had it,” says Ellen, “an am well again.” “Aye, but ye may give it to ither folk.” At this a Frenchman came up to speak to the man and on seeing Ellen put his hand to his mouth and drew back. “Louis,” says the Scotchman, “tak this lassie hame wi you and give her a nicht’s lodgin.” Louis shook his head. “I’ll pay you, man,” shouted the Scotchman. “No, no,” said Louis, making a sign of horror, “me not let her in my house.” “You are a’ o’ ae kirk and suld be kind to ane anither.” Without replying, Louis left. “Weel, lassie, gin they’ll no gie you cover in this town, ye maun gae wi me,” and with that he went into the tavern at the head of the wharf and came back with some bread in his hand for her. He spread his horse blanket on the bags for her to sit on and off they started. It was a long drive in the dark, for the horse walked every step of the way, and Ellen fell asleep. On waking at the rumbling of the cart ceasing, she found they were standing in a farm-yard. The night was clear but cold, but she had not felt it, for the Scotchman had tucked his big coat around her. He told her he dare not take her to the house for fear of infecting the children. Lighting a lantern he showed her to a corner of the barn, where she lay down to sleep, while he went to unyoke his horse. On waking in the morning she stepped into the yard, where she found the Scotchman unloading his cart. “I’ve been waitin for you,” says he, “an dinna tak it unkind if I say you maun go at ance on yer way. Were my naebors to hear o’ ane wha has been sick o’ the fever bein here, my place wad be shunned.” Putting something to eat in her hand he bade her follow him, and pointed out the road she was to take for her uncle’s place, and by observing his directions had succeeded.
“An so there’s only yirsilf left?” asks my wife.
“Av our family,” says she, “but unless he’s dead since I left, there’s my cousin Gerald in the fever sheds at quarantine.”
Gerald was my sister’s only child and I had heard after her death he had gone to Maynooth to be a priest.
“Do you tell me my nephew, that rode on my knee the day I left Ireland, is in Canada? Why did he not come wid you?”
Then she explained; told us of what he had been to the sick and dying and how the day before she left he had been stricken himself. She wanted to stay with him, but he told her to hasten to her uncle and if he had a mind he might come and help him; she could do no good to stay. I jumps up. “I’ll go,” I cries, “and will bring him back wid me here safe and sound.” As I said that I caught my wife’s eye so pleading like, not to go. But I did. I got my neighbors to look after my hay and off I started next morning, bright and early, to catch the stage at the Potash. When old Mr Oliver heard my errand, he told me to go back to my family, but my mind was made up. When my own brother was adying I was in comfort. I was determined my nephew would not suffer like him and me so near. When the stage came along I jumped into a seat and before darkening I was in the city. All the talk there was about the fever, and how the poor creatures were dying by the hundred in the sheds at Point St Charles. Everybody was in mortal dread of infection and the police had orders to watch that none of the emigrants got past the wharves or out of the sheds, but some did, and they were hunted down and taken back. I kept my whisht as to my errand and listened in the bar-room of the tavern to one story after another, that made the blood run cold to my heart. After an early breakfast next day I left the tavern and walked down to where the steamer sailed for Quebec. It was a beautiful morning and I thought it the prettiest sight I had seen for a long time, the blue river sparkling in the sun and the islands and the other shore looking so fresh and green, with the blue mountains beyant. It was going to be a while before the steamer was ready, for there was a pile of freight to put on board, and I walked up a bit to look round me. In turning the corner of a shed I sees lying on the ground a young lad with a girl leaning over him. I went up to them. “What’s come over you, my boy, that you be lyin on the ground?” asks I. Never a word from either. I went close up and I sees his eyes closed and his face white as death, with his head resting on the girl’s lap. “God save us, what’s wrong?” Never a word. “Can I do anything for you?” I says, placing my hand on her shoulder. She lifted up her head that was bowed down on the young man’s, oh so slowly, and looked at me, her face white and sunk like. “No,” she whispered, “he’s adyin.” “Dyin like this in a Christian land,” says I, “I will get help.” I ran back to where the crowd was and tould a policeman. “They’ll be escaped imigrants,” says he, “and must be sent back, the villins,” and off he comes with me. I led him to the place and he flourished his big stick, shouting, “What div ye mean, coming among Christian people agin orders?” I caught his arm. “Don’t touch them; he’s dyin,” for I heard the rattle in his throat. We stood aside for a minute or so, there was a gurgle and a drawin up of the legs, and all was over. “Oh, my brother, my brother, hev you died afore me,” moaned the poor girl as she tighter clutched his body. “Come wid me,” I said, stooping over and trying to lift her, “I am Irish like yersilf, and will spind my last dollar if need be to bury your brother. Lave him, and I will take you where you will find friends.” I could not loosen her hould on the body. The policeman said he would go for the ambulance and left me. I stroked her hair, I talked to her as if she had been my own daughter; I tried to comfort her. Never a sign or a word. There was a sound of wheels and I looked and saw the ambulance. The men came and I grasped the girl to lift her off the corpse. I caught a look at her face—she was dead too. The ambulance men said that was nothing, that fever patients dropped dead every day without a sign. I looked at the poor colleen as I helped to lift her into the ambulance beside her brother’s corpse, and I knew it was not of the fever alone she had died, but of a broken heart. Och, och, to come to Ameriky to die on the quay. “Drive to the cimitry,” says I, “and I will pay all expinses,” trying to get up beside the driver. “Have you lost your sinses,” says he, “they wad not bury them in the cimitry; they go to Point St Charles, and if yer wise ye’ll tell nobody you handled faver patients and go about your business.” Wid that he cracks his whip, and rattles aff at a great rate. “Well, well,” I said to myself, “at ony rate they will be united in burial as they were in life and death,” and they rest in the field where a big stone tells more than 3000 were buried. I turned with a heavy heart to the steamer, which was ringing a warning bell to get on board and lying down on a pile of bags fell asleep. It was afternoon when I awoke and soon after we were at Three Rivers, where I went ashore and got something to eat. When we had left it a while a steamer hove in sight, coming up the river. We crowded to see her in passing. It was a sight that sunk like a stone on my heart. Her lower deck was chuck full of women and childer and men, all in rags, and with faces as sharp as hatchets from starvation, and most all of them white or yellow from the fever. She passed between us and the wind and the smell was awful. A sailor told me steamboats passed every day like her on their way from quarantine, and never a one reached Montreal without a row of corpses on her upper deck for burial and a lot of sick to be carried to Point St Charles.