A HEROINE

Hokitika Guardian, 13 January 1925, Page 4

A HEROINE

THRILLING STORY OF M AVAR DAYS. AUCKLAND, January 11. In a little cottage at Grey Lynn there lives a heroine of a real-life drama of the early pioneering days. She is now eighty-five years of atji’, attd sees hut little oi' Hie passing pageant of life but years ago she took part in one of those thrilling episodes of unwritten history which now and again are retold by the descendants ot the pioneers. The scene of this British woman’s deed of heroism was in Taranaki in the year 1860. A\nr with the Maoris had just started, and the white settlers were in daily feat' of attack.

Typhoid fcvei‘ had broken out itl tiic family of one man engaged in a military'contract, and liis family was isolated about half a mile beyond the entrenchment's. At the time the story opens the mother, two sons and a daughter were lying in dire straits, having been for a week unattended, save for the scanty help the breadwinner could give in the intervals of his work. A clergyman seeking aid for the sick found at last a willing helper in a girl, tint, j-dt twenty years oi age. “ Someone sick, and no one to look alter them? .Surely, I will go, ’ she said, and off she went to the isolated house of fever, in all Taranaki .Rut one other had been found who would venture so far from the shelter of the entrenchments to tend these poor stricken folk. The clergyman conducted the girl to the place, and left her there. A heartrending spectacle presented itselfMother til'd daughter lay dying, two sous were in delirium. Too near the borderland were the two former ior this liravc soul to bring them back. All that was possible was done to soothe their last hours. They died, and the nurse devoted herself to the two sous. Later on, the eldest daughter wits stricken, then the father himself. Think of it, you nurses and patients

of no cm hospital instituti jr.s. w.th antiseptics and anaesthetics, and all the elaborate paraphernalia of tl’j sick room, at your command. The day came when only the father and two sons were lcfft, Then tragedy came suddenly a step (loser. Otic day a cart and horses approached at lull gallop, headed for the fort. As it passed the fever-stricken house the girl, guessing the cause of the alarm, ran out crying to the driver to stop. “Take these poor sick people in your citrl;" she implored. “The lever has left them, and it will ho safe to move them.” But the man drove on at n furious pace, shouthig to the girl. “ Run for your life. Run. They are coming they arc just behind me!” latter on another drove by in the same mantiOl 1 . The sick moil hearing plainly ail that was said, tried to persuade their benefactor to leave them to their fate, and to save hersell, IniL sin: stuck to her post, declaring that she would either lake them away with her alive or stay with them and die. Ami these people had boon utter strangers to her until she embarked on her errand of mercy. Despairing of help trout her leilowmeti, the poor girl turned to the house after the second cart drove by. with the prospects of a terrible death tor her and for her patients before her eyes. And then she heard the gallop ol horses once more, this time coining from the direction of the entrenchments. She looked out and cried to her sick fronds “ Snnoene is coming for you. They are coming here. 1 am sine.”

And so indeed it proved. In the curl Mere two clergymen. Archdeacon Govctt and the Rev Brown, driving in furious haste, lings were wrapped round the patients and they were quickly placed in the vehicle. < hie clergyman drove, aiid (he nurse and her other deliverer ran for dear lile. The ciitieliehnienL, were icarlied in saletv. and having placed the patients in kindly hands, the driver turned to meet the two approaching refugees, and cried aloud, “ A guard of honour lor Florence Nightingale!” The cry passed through the camp. The soldiers formed in two lines, and down between their ranks passed the heroine. Much eonlTtseil was this simple girl at- all Hie compliments showered upon her as she passed to safety between two lines of British soldiery.

•■ If ever anyone deserved the \ ictoriii Cross it Mas this girl.” declared the narrator of the incident. But the only oflieiai iceogni Lion of this brave art ever made was a grant ol -L'2s. Thus heroism walks in humble ways unrecognised, unapplnuded by tbo multitude, and out at Grey Lynn, in the late evening .ol her days, the old lady who was once this eager, brave voting gild, sits quietly in her little home, with her memories of thrilling days in t |,e morning of life.