“When all is done that mortal might can do,And all that’s done is naught; when wisdom fails,And the strong hand grows feeble, and the heartThat was most valiant sinks into the dust—Then look ye upward—lo! He comes. Behold,The Lord!”
“When all is done that mortal might can do,And all that’s done is naught; when wisdom fails,And the strong hand grows feeble, and the heartThat was most valiant sinks into the dust—Then look ye upward—lo! He comes. Behold,The Lord!”
“When all is done that mortal might can do,And all that’s done is naught; when wisdom fails,And the strong hand grows feeble, and the heartThat was most valiant sinks into the dust—Then look ye upward—lo! He comes. Behold,The Lord!”
Onthat September even, so soft and mellow and harvest-like, with the full eye of its serene moon looking down peacefully upon the quiet world, the inhabitants of London, such of them as were not stretched on hopeless sick beds, or hopelessly watching by the same, lay down in reckless and wild despair, assured of early death. On the next day the weekly bill of mortality would be published, and the hearts of the people sickened within them, as they anticipated the further progress of the pestilence which its fatal record would make known.
That day was a fast-day in Master Chester’s church of St. Margaret’s in Westminster, and Master Field was engaged to preach there. The little household had assembled in Dame Rogers’s sitting-room for their morning worship. The father and daughter sat side by side; their host was at a little distance, and Dame Rogers and her child, Mercy, were timidly withdrawn near the door.
They were about to commence their simple service. Suddenly there came a low knock to the outer door of the cottage. They had all learned to know the light hand of Sir Philip Dacre, and John Goodman rose to admit him.
He stood still on the threshold in their sight, with a strange quivering look of joy about him, at which they marveled mightily. Joy! its very name had become an unknown word in London. There were tears standing in the young man’s eyes, and a tremulous, unsteady smile upon his lips, which looked as though it would fain run over in the weeping of a glad heart. He lifted up his hands, but he said nothing, except “Thank God! thank God!”
“Amen!” said Master Field, gravely; “but for what special mercy, Sir Philip? Enter and let us share your thanksgiving, as you have shared our trouble.”
“It ebbs—it ebbs!” exclaimed the young man; “the tide has turned, Master Field—the fury of the pestilence has abated—there is hope!”
They all rose; the timid Dame Rogers, who had shrunk from him before, pressing nearest now to the bearer of good tidings—and gathered round him in an eager ring, with the same fit of tremulous, uncertain joyousness upon themselves, to learn the particulars of this unlooked for gladness.
“Near two thousand less in this one week,” said Sir Philip, more agitated now than he had been in the greatest horror of the darkness. “The last wave was a mighty one, but the tide has receded far already. Let us thank God! when there was neither help nor hope, He hathdone it of His own grace. The pestilence that hath stricken so many is itself stricken, blessed be the day!”
And so they took their places again, and amid low sobs and silent weeping, gave the Great Physician thanks. Strongly nerved and strained to the uttermost, the sudden relaxation took the form of feebleness; and even Caleb Field himself, whose stout soul had never quailed amid all these terrors, did now, his daughter weeping delicious tears beside him, with faltering voice and quickened breathing, pour out the flood of his warm thanksgiving before his God.
And when they had taken their morning meal, they went out together to St. Margaret’s with lightened hearts—hearts that began timidly to resume their old functions of joy and hoping. As they approached Westminster, they observed a group of men a little way before them, whose mood was clearly evident by the congratulations they exchanged—congratulations which were more of gesture than of speech. They dispersed before Master Field, his daughter, and Sir Philip came up; but one who met them, a stranger, paused to stretch out his hand, and say:
“Have ye heard the news? God be thanked!”
“Yea, brother, and amen,” said Master Field, grasping the extended hand of the stranger. “Let us not forget His goodness, lest a worse thing befall us.”
The man passed on. The universal gladness, like the universal sorrow, made all brethren.
They were passing through a narrow street. A woman stood at a high window of one of those old picturesque gabled houses which exist among us no longer.
“Neighbor,” she cried, “good neighbor Waterman, heard ye the news?”
An opposite window opened slowly; at it stood a languid old man, with a girl’s face looking eagerly over his shoulder.
“What news, good dame?” said the old man. “Truly, when there can be none but evil ones, it is best to have dull ears.”
“Good news, thank God,” said the other: “the bill is near two thousand less, as my good man says; and an it rose swift, we may hope it will sink swifter, I wot. God be thanked!—we e’en counted ourselves dead folk; but the Lord is merciful.”
“Ah, grandfather,” cried the girl, “we will see my mother again. Thank God! thank God!”
The old man’s lip was quivering; his eyelids drooped heavily.
“And is it so? Is there any hope? For the city, and for the young child! God be praised, for He is very good.”
And as they went on, wherever two strangers met, wherever human life remained, with tears and tremulous rejoicing, the people lifted up their voices in thanks to God.
In front of the abbey, Master Chester met them. For the first time, the quaint and courtly gentleman was discomposed; lights and shadows, in a hundred shifting combinations, pursued each other over his vivacious features. He was too greatly moved at first to speak; he only held out his hands.
“And so ye be all come with the glad tidings,” he saidat last, “which truly are glad tidings for all; and our controversy concerning thy dangerous labor, Mistress Edith, we will end now; for men think otherwise in hazard than they do in hope; and the Lord of the poor will remember thee, little maiden, because thou didst remember the poor of the Lord. Thou wilt have many to hear thee, brother Field, on this fair morrow, and, I pray God, many to heed thee also: for that which is impressed but by disaster is in danger, I fear me, of being erased by deliverance. The good Lord keep us from this evil; but in sooth we grow wanton oft when it is fit we should grow wary, and are liker to lead ourselves into deeds that need to be repented of, through the abundance of God’s mercies, than to endeavor that God’s mercies should lead us to repentance.”
“It is but too frequent,” said Master Field; “but this city hath been so sorely smitten, that the remembrance of the stroke will not soon depart. I trust only that the delirium of this joy will not intoxicate the remnant, for indeed the penitence of deadly fear is but a frail trust to lean upon. Nevertheless, brother, what saith thy poet?
“‘When the equal poise of hope and fearDoth arbitrate the event, my nature is,That I do ever hope rather than fear.’
“‘When the equal poise of hope and fearDoth arbitrate the event, my nature is,That I do ever hope rather than fear.’
“‘When the equal poise of hope and fearDoth arbitrate the event, my nature is,That I do ever hope rather than fear.’
“And truly, He who hath done this is the same Lord who hath bruised the head of the enemy.”
“Without doubt,” answered Master Chester; “and in terror, even as in tenderness, the same Lord. But thy poet, I pray thee note, is notmypoet, brother. Truly, a pestilent sectary, an he were also a noble singer of Heaven’s own proper training. Yet thou knowest, thisdeadly peril over, that I love not those who forsake order, and e’en would take order with them, though I love them not; for a Church that lacketh government is like to lack goodness, ere long, I fear me; and truthful doctrine hath rightful discipline for its twin brother. An evil-conditioned man this Milton, Mistress Judith; thinkest thou not so?”
“Truly, sir, he maketh noble melody,” said Edith.
“Ah, little one, thine ear tingleth to sweet music; but these are matters that fit us not thou thinkest, brother, and I doubt not thy thoughts are busy with matters that will fit all. And lo! the people that remain to us how they gather, and shall have gathered somewhat ere they part, I doubt not, that will remain. Now the Lord send seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.”
The church was full; a congregation more deeply moved never met together. In their fear they had been solemn and grave, sometimes stern in the austerity of new-born penitence; but now the flood-gates of their souls were opened, and floating over the wrung hearts in the first relief from their long tension, was every where that fluttering tremulous joy.
After the service Edith returned home alone. Her father was occupied with the peculiar work of his ministry, and detained Sir Philip beside him. The young cavalier, even in those subdued times, was over-conspicuous an attendant for the Puritan’s daughter.
She was passing through one of the silent streets in the neighborhood of Whitehall. Most of the great, gloomy houses had been deserted at the beginning of the plague, and now stood uninhabited, frowning in desolate grandeur.They were the residences of people of high rank who could fly, and had fled early, and so Edith saw the fatal mark on none of the gloomy walls she passed. The street was short: its look of dark funereal pomp oppressed her heavily.
She had nearly reached the end of it, when a low moan, painfully audible in the profound stillness, fell upon her ear. She paused to listen. After another moment of oppressive tingling silence, it was repeated—a low, faint, dying moan.
The wide gate of the court-yard opposite her stood open. She entered, impelled by a singular curiosity and interest. Upon the broad stone steps lay a rich velvet mantle lined with costly furs. It had been thrown down, as it seemed, by some one flying from the house; further in upon the floor of the spacious hall lay some glittering trinkets, reflecting the September sunshine strangely from the cold pavement. Other articles lay scattered about, dropped by the fugitives in their flight, and the cry of pain came ringing down the wide staircase, raising hollow echoes in the great empty, deserted house.
Edith went up the stairs. Here was some one dying of the pestilence alone, and the care and caution of less exigent cases could not now stand in the way of needful succor; but she did not reflect so; she only acted upon the irresistible impulse and hurried on.
The sound grew more distinct as she advanced; there was impatience in it and strength. It was no worn-out sufferer, but some one struggling desperately under the deadly poison. Edith entered an ante-chamber furnished with stately magnificence, pompous and grand, without theluxury of that voluptuous time. Through an open door the voice came fretful in its anguish. Edith’s heart was beating high with the excitement of youthful courage. She had never before been in such immediate contact with the enemy: she went in.
Under rich curtains, upon a bed of state, lay a woman whose fine features were convulsed and flushed with the pain against which her proud will struggled for the mastery. She was half-dressed as if suddenly attacked. Her dark hair had a sprinkling of gray, her face was haughty and proud in its expression, and the voice of her pain was making itself articulate in words:
“All gone from me—all fled. Just Heaven, must I die alone!”
Her eye fell upon Edith as she spoke. With a loud, shrill cry of fear the lady raised herself from her bed, and shrank back to its furthest bound.
“Thou Edith! thou spirit—thou angel! comest thou to torment me before my time? Ah! have mercy, God, have mercy! hast Thou sentherto see me die!”
Edith paused in fear at this address, but recollecting herself, she threw a handful of perfumes into the fire, which burned faintly upon the hearth, and advanced to the bedside to see if any thing could be done. In the simpler remedies for the pestilence she had become skilled.
But the patient shrank still further back, and gazing at her with wild terrified eyes, extended her hand to keep her away.
“Come not near me—what have I to do with thee, thou dead! Ah! wilt thou press upon me—wilt thou stifle me—thou—thou—Edith, I did not slay thee!”
“Lady,” said her wondering visitor, “I do but seek to help if I can do aught—I have with me what may do you service. Have you been long stricken?”
“Keep back,” cried the lady, in wild fear, rising almost entirely from the bed, while on her breast Edith saw the fatalest tokens of the plague—the deadly marks which precluded all hope. “Keep back, I say—leave me, thou spirit—why would’st thou tarry out of thy heaven. Ah! thou cruel Almighty One, who hast sent her to see mine agony, carry her hence—I will bear thy fires—thy torments—but not this—not this!”
Edith fell back before the extremity of terror shining in the stricken woman’s face.
“Leave me,” she repeated, hoarsely, crouching close by the wall. “Edith, thou wert gentle once, and I entreat thee. I have defied this plague—I do defy yonder tortures—but thou—thou! wilt thou not leave me!”
“Have patience with me, lady!” said Edith, “I do but seek to serve you if I may—I am no spirit—I am Edith Field, a poor maiden—if you will but let me help you.”
“And thou darest say so to my face,” said the unhappy patient, wildly. “Thou darest to call thee by yonder clown’s name; thou who wert once a Dacre! Would’st thou kill me? dost thou come hither in my last hours to rejoice over mine agony? Avoid thee, avoid thee, thou cruel spirit! What have I to do with thee?”
Edith retreated in terror. The lady pressed her hands over her eyes as if to shut out the unwelcome sight.
“Is she gone?” she muttered, “is she gone? Ah! this torment—ah! this agony—to die, and none but her beholding me—is she gone?”
She removed her hands and looked fearfully round. Edith stood pale and trembling at the door.
“Wilt thou not go?” exclaimed the lady, “wilt thou remain, thou spirit? I slew thee not—thou did’st not say to me thou had’st no shelter—thou said’st not thou wert homeless, thou false one, and who could tell me if thou did’st not? I tell thee, Edith—Edith, thou Puritan—thou pale-face—thou false Dacre, I tell thee, thou bearest witness to a lie, for I did not slay thee!”
There was a pause—the sick woman fell back exhausted upon her bed, keeping her large, dilated, unnaturally bright eyes fixed upon Edith.
“Where is her child?” she murmured. “Where has she left her child? she had it in her arms yonder, when she stood by the door, and they say the mark of her footsteps hath been ever there, since then—but where is her child? has she killed her child?”
There were footsteps ascending the stairs. Edith turned in some fear to see who was approaching.
“Ha!” cried the wild, shrill voice. “She trembles before me—she fears mine eye. Thou coward, thou art lesser than I in thy very heaven. False heart! Craven! I laugh thee to scorn—thou canst not stand before me.”
The step drew near. Edith looked anxiously from the door; she scarcely heard the loud incoherent ravings of the sick woman’s voice. Through the open door of the ante-chamber she saw a man approaching—it was Sir Philip Dacre.
“Mistress Edith,” he exclaimed, hurriedly, “is my mother stricken? Ah, I trembled for this—and thou hastcome to her in pity. God reward thee—for thou art like the angels of His own dwelling place.”
He hurried forward to the bedside.
“Art thou here, Philip?” said the raving Lady Dacre; “and did’st thou meet yonder coward flying from before me? She came to exult over me; she came to see me suffer; she, thou knowest, Edith, whom men say I helped to slay; but she feared mine eye, Philip; she remembered, the craven, how she was wont to quail before me, and she has fled!”
The lady raised herself and looked round once more.
“She is not gone? Edith—Edith—Philip, thou hast wept for her; she will go if thou dost bid her go.”
“Mother,” said Philip Dacre, earnestly, “mother, think of thyself now; there is none here but a mortal maiden of thine own kindred, who comes to help thee in mercy. Mother, let us tend you. When were you stricken? Oh! God, is there no hope?”
“See you,” said his mother, in a whisper. “See you how she steals yonder? There is no footfall—thinkest thou, thou could’st hear the footfall of a spirit? and lo! you, Philip, she looketh gentle, an angel in heaven. Where is her child? Send her away,” she cried, suddenly starting in wild passion, “send her away. Think ye I will die in her presence? Nay, nay, nay, send her hence, she will go if you command her.”
Edith hurriedly left the room; she heard, as she lingered in the ante-chamber for a moment, the wild voice sink in its raving, and then she left the house to seek a nurse.
Along the silent, echoing streets, with fear and wonderrising in her mind tumultuously, Edith hastened to seek help. What this mysterious connection was, she had never ascertained; but the melancholy light which enshrined the memory of her young mother, threw its pale radiance strangely over this death-bed; but Edith’s marveling shaped itself into no definite question. She was too eager in her errand; her hasty search for help to the Lady Dacre.
Dorothy Turner was engaged with her patient, the despairing woman whose violent flight into the Hampsteadfields had saved her life; and Edith sought Dame Saffron, who had also taken up, in extremity, the desperate trade of plague-nurse. The laundry-woman was fortunately disengaged, and with many inquiries after Edith’s own health, and much talk of the calamities which had come under her own notice, which Edith, in her haste and anxiety, scarcely heard, accompanied her to Westminster.
Sir Philip received them at the door. He was very grave and sad.
“I have brought Dame Saffron to tend the lady,” said Edith, “but perchance it were better that I entered not.”
“Both for thine own sake and hers, gentle cousin,” said the young man. “Start not, for we are truly kindred; but remember her in pity and in tenderness, Edith, for she lies on a terrible death-bed, pricked to the heart—have pity on her—have pity on her, gentle Edith.”
“Speak not of grief till thou hast seenThe tears of armed men.”Mrs. Hemans.
“Speak not of grief till thou hast seenThe tears of armed men.”Mrs. Hemans.
“Speak not of grief till thou hast seenThe tears of armed men.”Mrs. Hemans.
Uponthe evening of that day, Caleb Field and his daughter sat in Dame Rogers’s better room alone. The minister had newly returned from the strenuous labors of his vocation, and Edith had just finished telling him of the strange meeting of the morning.
The simple evening meal stood untasted upon the table. The strong winds of deep emotion were sweeping over his face. The bitterest time of all his stout, laborious life was standing forth before him in its deadly coloring of cruel wrong and terrible bereavement. Not now the sanctity of tenderness wherewith her gentle memory made all things holy round it; but the bitter, blind agony of yonder dark hour of her death, was swelling in the heart of Edith Dacre’s forlorn and faithful husband.
The look of her wan face as she tottered up the bare paths of yonder hills, seeking a place to die in; the last faint whisper of her voice that forgave her hard and haughty kinswoman, and bade God bless him and the child; vivid, in bitter pain and anguish, they came into his heart, as he laid his face down into his clasped hands andwept—those few terrible tears of stern manhood which express to us the uttermost agony of grief.
After a time he grew calmer, though Edith started to see the pale face, still moved with its extremity of emotion, which her father raised to her before he spoke.
“Edith,” he said, hoarsely, “I have never dared to tell you—never dared for terror of myself: yet I say the Lord forgive her—the Lord pardon the proud woman, asshedid who is in His heaven long years ago. My Edith! my blessed one!”
“Father,” said Edith, “tell me not if it moves you thus: indeed I did not know any thing; but, father, spare yourself.”
“Edith,” said Master Field, proceeding with fixed composure, like one reading words which he had conned so often that he knew them at last ‘by heart,’ “they were near kinswomen, daughters of two brethren: yonder haughty lady was the heir; Edith had naught but the riches of her own noble heart. The proud cousin ruled with the strong hand of a tyrant; the gentle one was an orphan, alone in this chill earth: and in the house of her fathers Edith Dacre was a slave!
“Ah! Edith, thou knowest grief—thou knowest not the hard sorrows of thy sweet mother’s youth!
“And so she gave her gentle hand to me, and we were at peace and joyous for one blessed while. Thou wert born then, in our glad poverty, Edith: I dare not look back upon its wondrous sunshine—I dare not!
“But it was an evil time! Yonder hapless king and the archbishop were failing in their unrighteous power; and suddenly, when we thought no evil, we were driven,by some of the king’s followers, from our quiet home—for the war was raging then. It was a bitter winter—stern and cold, like the power that persecuted us; and underneath a chill sky, Edith, they drove us forth homeless: thy mother with the faint rose only budding in her cheek, and thou new-born!
“What could we do? I?—I would have toiled—I would have suffered; I would have taken upon me the uttermost yoke that mortal neck ever bore for ye both; but every door was closed upon us—no man dared shelter the forlorn Puritan; no kind heart offered refuge to the fainting fragile mother—the hunted Puritan’s wife.
“So we went forth upon the bleak road, Edith, if, perchance, we could have reached the humble shelter of Ralph Dutton’s cottage; I knew we might be safe and secret there; but thy mother’s strength failed her, and in despair I sat me down at the gate of Thornleigh, while my Edith went to the door of her hard kinswoman, to crave a shelter for herself and thee. The lady then had a little one of her own—this good youth Philip—and I believed not but her heart would melt to the young mother and the child.
“Edith, she came forth in her pride to the threshold, where stood my gentle one, and with the keen wind cutting over that blessed face, and the weariness of her way-faring bending her to the earth, the door of her fathers’ house was shut upon her! In the extremity of our distress, yonder evil woman had naught but reproach to say to her! her own kindred, her own blood—the young mother with the infant in her weary arms!
“She came out to me again, Edith, I had waited to seethat she was but safe, ere I went upon my lonely way, she came out to me with a smile upon her lip, such a smile! thou sawest never the like. ‘We will go on, Caleb,’ she said, ‘we will go on!’ that was all. Edith, I was nigh maddened! I saw the cold striking into her heart, I saw her totter as she laid her hand upon my arm, and I—I could do naught, my soul was mad within me: I could scarce speak comfort to her.
“And we went on—how, I dare not try to think; yet we did toil up yonder hills, thou wailing on her bosom, and I carrying ye both in my arms—a dreadful journey! God save thee, Edith, from ever such agony as thou hadst an unconscious part in then!
“We reached our shelter at last, when the gloom of night was on the hills, the bleak, chill gloom of night; and then, Edith, I tried to hope. God help me! I looked upon her face as she lay yonder, and tried to hope. But she had only come there in time to die! Edith—Edith! it was thus thy mother died!”
He could not go on; the strong man’s voice was choked—his breast heaved convulsively, and again he hid his face in his hands.
Edith was weeping silently by his side; the time passed by unnoted; he knew not how it went, until he looked up again when the twilight shadows were stealing through the room, and saw Sir Philip Dacre standing by his daughter’s side.
The young man was very grave. He looked wistfully into the Puritan’s face, “She is dead.”
Yes, in bitterer agony than that which carried the gentle Edith Dacre away from sin and oppression, intothe holy peace of heaven—in deadly remorse and dreary hopelessness, rejecting the name of Him whose mercy she had spurned, and whose servants she had wronged, the haughty spirit of the Lady of Thornleigh had gone forth unrepentant and defiant to its doom.
The Puritan did not speak.
“The Lord pardon her,” said Edith; then she paused in painful haste: it was too late now to pray that prayer.
And so in the midst of panic and calamity, when solemn funeral honors could be paid to none, however noble, her son and the husband of her murdered kinswoman the sole mourners, they laid the Lady Dacre in an uncommemorated grave.
The pestilence ebbed and flowed again—in its capricious floods and falls cheating the sick hearts that watched its sinking with so tremulous a hope; and though it grew feeble with the feeble year, it still held its place until its close, and only went fully out at last when the wholesome cold of the mid-winter began to be touched by the breath of another spring.
But in December, the stricken who had been counted by thousands once, were reckoned in scanty hundreds only. The terror was gone, the atmosphere was cleared. Where men had been wont, under the pressure of this calamity, to stay upon the desolate streets and confess their sins before God aloud, men staid now in joyful wonder to give Him thanks who had spared them. But grim want and poverty were reigning supreme over those hollow-eyed, pale-faced citizens of the meaner sort whom the plague had spared, and there was yet abundant room for the labors of charity and kindness, and many calls for such—calls which were not unanswered.
Edith Field, with Mercy Rogers in attendance on her, was passing through Aldgate one chill December day, on her usual work of mercy.
“Mistress Edith,” said a voice behind them, “tarry, and say farewell to an ancient friend.”
Edith turned round hastily; behind her stood Master Vincent. His dark face had grown thin and emaciated, his form was bent as with a very weight of weakness, yet his step was light, and swift, and nervous, and his labors had known no abatement. His warfare was nearly over: no need of legislation to drive him once more from his post. He carried the sentence of removal in his face—here where he had labored he was to die.
“Farewell, reverend sir!” said Edith. “Do you then leave London?”
“Ay, maiden,” said the preacher, “the hour of my translation draweth nigh; and I thank God heartily who hath heard my petition, and hath spared me to the end. Fare thee well, gentle Edith Field—thou hast done thy work bravely, like one who feareth God. Greet thy father well from me, and tell him we shall hold fast our brotherhood till we meet in the presence of our Lord. Let him not envy that I be called up first, for there is need of him yet in this evil world.”
“Ah, Master Vincent, speak not so exceeding sadly,” said Edith, “for truly you do ill to hold life light which the master hath kept safely through all this peril.”
“Thinkest thou I hold it light, maiden?” was the answer. “Now God forbid; yea, I consider well it is awondrous gladness to live under this sunshine of the Lord. But see you, Mistress Edith, yonder sun, that the eyes of our humanity may not look upon for the glory of his brightness, hath all his magnificence gathered yonder, albeit he doth part it into such rays as we can bear: and so doth our Holy One reserve His exceeding glory for yonder fair country, where he is forever; and surely it is better to be with Him, and lawful to desire it, for I have accomplished my warfare, and methinks the voice of His summons is in mine ear already.”
“But were it not well to take rest?” said Edith, “and wise, good sir, for thine own sake and the people’s.”
“Rest? ay, beyond the river, but not on this mortal side. Rest, maiden, rest! ye do hear of naught else in this carnal time; but I tell thee God’s servants have all to do but rest; their rest remaineth for them where no man shall break its peace. Rememberest thou that when the shadows of this day of storms be fully overpast, they will drive the brethren hence into silence, and that this only is our working-time? Ah! I pray the Lord for the brethren, that He be a guide unto them; that He compass them about forever, as the mountains are round about Jerusalem. Rest, saidst thou? yea, I have nearly gotten to the rest; the Lord’s arrow was in mine heart long ago, before this city was stricken; and see you the mercy of the Mighty One, who has lengthened out my feeble thread, that I, with my death stealing over my heart, should preach to the multitudes who have been hurried before me over the stream. Who can know him? who can fathom the loving-kindness of the Lord?”
“But if thou wert in a healthfuller place?” said Edith.“Ah, Master Vincent, it is lawful to take rest for the Lord’s sake.”
“I thank thee, Mistress Edith,” said the preacher, more calmly, “for thy good and gentle wishes; and I think oft that I would I could look on the broad sea once more ere I go hence; but that is of slight import, seeing it concerneth no mortal thing save mine own longing. Thou hast done bravely, Mistress Edith; the Lord give thee double for thy valor; but I wist not wherefore gentle Mary Chester should be less brave than thou.”
“Less brave! nay, Master Vincent, say not so,” exclaimed Edith, eagerly; “only I have naught in this wide earth but my father, and Mary hath the little ones in charge. They have no mother, the little children; and Mary Chester hath been braver in patience and waiting than I.”
“Sayest thou so?” said the minister, dreamily, “sayest thou so? Yet shall we all meet in yonder fair land where the Lord dwelleth. Would it were come: would we were all there! And thou wilt carry my greeting to thy friend, Mistress Edith. The Lord be her dwelling-place! And so, young sister, fare thee well.”
She stood still, looking after him. He was a young man, though worn with toils and sorrows; no ascetic, but with a heart beating warm to all the kindnesses of life; with human hopes vehement as his own nature; with human affections ardent above most. Imprisoned in an unwholesome jail because he could not choose but preach, the seeds of disease had been sown in his delicate frame a year or two before; and it was thus he had spent the remnant of his life. The delicate fire, that might haveburned on longer with careful tending, blazed up in one bright flash, and only one, before it sank into darkness; and now he had but to die.
Gentle Mary Chester, in yonder quiet house in Surrey, knew all this. What then? he had his labor, she had hers. It was no question of what either wished or hoped; for who, born of those godly households, and nurtured in that simple constancy of faith, could put mortal design, or joy, or purpose, before the work of the Lord?
But Edith Field turned away with a heavy heart; so sad alway, be the spirit strung ever so strongly, is that eclipse of human expectation, of youthful joy and hope. The inner man in strong life, counting with stern composure the last grains of his mortal existence, as they passed one by one away—the falling of those numbered days which, but for that blight, would have been the brightest. It was a sad sight to look upon.
“Please you, Mistress Edith,” said Mercy, when they had gone on some little way in silence, “does the young cavalier dwell always at Westminster?”
“Who is that, Mercy?” asked Edith.
“Sir Philip, madam; the gentleman that hath done so graciously, as people say, to the sick and to the poor.”
“Nay,” was the answer; “he dwells in Cumberland, Mercy.”
“Because, an’ please you,” continued Mercy, “Dame Saffron do tell sad tales of the great lady, the cavalier’s mother; and how she did speak of you in her raving, Mistress Edith, and called you Edith Dacre, and angel, and blessed one, and did not cease until she died.”
“Not I,” said Edith hastily; “it was not I the lady meant, but my mother, who was her kinswoman.”
“Then Sir Philip is of kin to you, Mistress Edith?” said the curious Mercy; “and truly that was what Dame Saffron said.”
“What did Dame Saffron say?” asked Edith.
“Nay, madam, nothing worth talking of—only that the young cavalier did not come always to have counsel with Master Field; but she knew not he was of kin to you, Mistress Edith; and forsooth she is but a gossip, and a great talker, as my mother says.”
Edith went on in silence: the pure blood flushing to her face. Before that great Death visibly present among them, who could think of the brighter things that cluster about the brow of youth; but now the weight was lifted off, and the young heart, strong in its humanity, began to send its first timid glances forward into a new future—a future rich with peradventures, and beautiful to look upon—fairer, perhaps more real, in its joy of anticipation, than if its dreams were all fulfilled.
“Good brother rest—the toil is overpastThe weariness, the travail, and the tears—.All that did trouble thee—and now beholdingFrom the high heaven how we lay up thy garmentsIn the safe treasure-house of Death, thou smil’stUpon our pains. So, till we follow thee.Farewell!”
“Good brother rest—the toil is overpastThe weariness, the travail, and the tears—.All that did trouble thee—and now beholdingFrom the high heaven how we lay up thy garmentsIn the safe treasure-house of Death, thou smil’stUpon our pains. So, till we follow thee.Farewell!”
“Good brother rest—the toil is overpastThe weariness, the travail, and the tears—.All that did trouble thee—and now beholdingFrom the high heaven how we lay up thy garmentsIn the safe treasure-house of Death, thou smil’stUpon our pains. So, till we follow thee.Farewell!”
Itwas a blustering, boisterous day in March; strong-handed winds, errant and violent, were roaming waywardly through London. The city had resumed its former look; the grass-grown streets were again filled with busy crowds. The terror of the great enemy had passed into other places, before himself was gone.
In the Hampstead cottage Edith Field, arrayed for a journey, sat waiting for her father. She looked very sad and downcast, and there were tears in her eyes. Dame Rogers went about her household business with loud lamentations over the departure of her guests. Mercy sat in a corner, silently weeping.
At that time the bells of Aldgate Church tolled mournfully for one dead. By a new grave there, Master Chester and Master Field stood together.
The funeral procession had departed—the grave wasclosed; they were looking down solemnly upon the resting-place of a brave captain in their brotherhood; a manful and loyal servant of God.
By-and-by Master Chester put his arm through his friend’s, and silently they turned away; they had emerged from the din and bustle of the city before either spoke.
“We have left him to his rest, good brother,” said Master Chester then; “and we who leave him, what remaineth for us? God knoweth—the Lord help us I pray, for there seemeth nothing left for us but to become wanderers and vagabonds on the face of the earth.”
“Yea, truly, God help us!” said Master Field, “for He knoweth that this oppression is even too like to make wise men mad. To think of this—that he, whom we have laid in quiet rest to-day, would have been hunted through the country, had he lived one short month longer, after spending life and strength for this people in their extremity. Who is sufficient for these things?”
“It is well,” said the other, his voice faltering with the sorrow which he restrained; “it is well that the Master hath carried him home, where evil act or statute can harm him nevermore. Thou wert a good soldier, Titus Vincent, brother and son of mine, and a faithful as ever served King; and thou art gotten to thine inheritance; the Lord keep us till we join thee. But, brother, pity me for my Mary—my poor girl.”
The pity was not spoken in words; but the two fathers, old and long friends, understood each other not the less.
“I can but spend a night with my little ones,” said Master Chester, after a long pause; “and God knoweth howmany nights shall be spent ere I look on them again. Is it to-morrow, brother, that this dark oppression becomes law?”
“Lady-day—yes, to-morrow,” was the answer; “and then, brother Chester, you join us in the North?”
“My sister Magdalene dwells in mine old parish,” said Master Chester, “and so I may not take refuge with her, though she hath wherewith to give my children bread; but, brother, thou sayest well—it is bitter and hard that I should not dare venture to tarry with them a day, lest pains of imprisonment and evil report come upon me. God strengthen us to bear all. For Cumberland? Yes; thy kinsman, Philip Dacre, offers me shelter in his house, for thy sake, and for mine own. God wot, a painful shelter, brother Field; eating of that for which I have not labored; yet to the Lord, who hath ordained this poverty, be all thanks, because He hath ordained also succor for His poor. And thou, brother, goest thou not also to Thornleigh?”
“Nay,” said Master Field, “my Edith goeth with me wherever I go; and, albeit, Philip Dacre is her kinsman; it can not be to Thornleigh.”
“Our Father bless the little one; she hath a stout heart, and a valiant,” said Master Chester; “and truly I admire and marvel how the Lord bringeth the sweet out of the bitter, as truly, brother, it is oft His good pleasure to bring the bitter out of the sweet. A dark dawn, and a bright noonday, for thy twain, and as fair a morrow as ever broke, and as sad an early even as ever fell for mine. So are our meetings and our sunderings here; and, truly, for the brief joy of them, what better are wethan sundered in our very meetings; but the Lord’s will be done.”
“He will console thee, brother,” said Caleb Field. “Thy Mary is young, and fresh, and hopeful. The blast will bend the youthful spirit, but it will not break it.”
“Yea—yea,” said Master Chester, “it is even so, I know; but truly painful it is, brother, to think that we shall some time forget our pain—thou knowest? She is a good child—a blessed child, as ever made mortal household glad; and I must carry sadness to her. Nevertheless, surely it is well; and it had not been well, He had not sent it.”
An hour after, they were riding forth from the city, which, for a second time, had rejected them, pursued by the rigorous cruelty of that famed “Five-Mile Act,” which Charles and his counselors had devised in the retreat of their cowardice at Oxford, while those very men, whom they sentenced to perpetual banishment, wandering, and poverty, were laboring for the people stricken by God’s judgment. Edith, protected from the cold, as well as her scanty wardrobe would allow, rode behind her father. Master Chester was beside them. As they reached the high road to the north, they encountered Master Franklin.
“Brother Franklin,” said Master Chester, “what is thy destination, that thou art still tarrying here?”
“Good brother, I am a poor man, and alone,” was the answer; “and, in sooth, I see little to choose between a prison, and some distant village, where I could hide me, and earn a morsel of bread; so I will tarry truly, and will stay my preaching for no law. If they do lay violenthands on me, be it so; if I may not preach, I may suffer; for I have no daughter, Master Field—no household, good brother Chester—and surely it is a thing lawful to be resisted, that an Englishman may not speak God’s truth.”
So the stubborn Saxon man remained, in various places stoutly resisting the enacted injustice, and carrying his Master’s message without fear; a persevering, plain, laborious spirit, whose tenacious and obstinate strength had something noble in it—so little show as it made—so little transfusion as it had of the loftier light of genius. The brave and honest common stock, of whom, if there were many, it would be blessed for this land.
And leaving London, the terror of God’s judgment removed, rushing headlong again into its ancient sins, the other Puritans went forth houseless, with only poverty and pain before them, to seek shelter and daily bread. Of all the benefactors of the stricken city, the most bold and untiring, they, and no other, were cast out at its restoration, in hardship, in sorrow, and in reproach, persecuted for their Master’s sake.
While among the many graves of yonder city churchyard, with those around him to whom he had ministered in deadly peril, and for whom he had spent his life, the preacher Vincent, lay quiet and at rest.
Sadly met, and sadly parted, the little company of wayfarers spent the night in the house of Mistress Magdalene Chester; and there, in silent pity and tenderness, by the widowed Mary’s side, Edith Field saw the full cup run over, as she delivered the last greeting intrusted to her by the dead. A sad cloud it was, enveloping the young life in its blinding mist of sorrow, yet nobly borne andgravely, and with that solemn sad hope, of all hopes the deepest and most steadfast.
And so they traveled home—for to no shelter more secure or of higher pretension than the cottage of the Cumberland shepherd, could the Puritan minister direct his steps. The quiet moorland parish, from which he had been ejected long ago by the followers of the first Charles—that hardest of all his trials, as he had described it to Edith—was full five miles away. Carlisle, the nearest town, was further. So in Ralph Dutton’s house he was safe.
Sir Philip Dacre had arrived at Thornleigh some brief time before, and there Master Chester, after a few days’ experience of the lassitude and weariness which follows the excitement of grief, settled down, not unpleasantly, into possession of that grave old library with its rich stores of ancient learning and philosophy. The father of the Lady Dacre had somewhat prided himself on his knowledge of the budding science of his time, and had so much leaning to the stricter party of Reformers in the Church, as to have left on his shelves many old ponderous volumes, which gladdened the quaint divine as he began his most congenial work in the sanctum of the Cumberland baronet. His former pupil and he agreed well. The courtly olden gentleman, indeed, had little in common with those rude clowns—half fool, half fanatic—whom men of these latter days have foisted into the ancient Presbyterian Church of England; as if it were so easy a thing to give up worldly goods, and home, and ease, and kindred, and risk even life itself for the Master’s sake, or as if clowns and fools were the men to make such sacrifices.
They had not been many hours under Dame Dutton’s roof again, ere Edith took her good hostess aside, to ask from her the further details of her mother’s history. She feared to mention it again to her father, at the risk of renewing the agony which she had seen in Hampstead.
“And is she dead?” said Dame Dutton; “is she dead, sayst thou, yonder proud lady? and in the plague, with onlytheeto be merciful to her? Ah! dost mind, Mistress Edith, how I, a sinful woman as I am, marveled that she got leave to bide in all her grandeur, who had done so cruel a wrong? But it hath found her out. And she called thee angel, sweetheart? and so she might, I warrant her, and thy mother before thee. Truly, I fear there be few angels whither she hath gone.”
“Hush, Dame Dutton! say not so,” said Edith; “it is not our part to give doom.”
“Nay, truly, Mistress Edith, I’ll do naught to anger thee; but, forsooth, what came upon yonder Lady Dacre was meet; thatthoushouldst go to succor her—thou, and no other; for, thou seest, she was mistress of all this land of her own right, and was a Dacre born, and wedded a kinsman—she could not help but wed him—it was none of her choosing, I trow, to wed a poor knight. And thy mother was of kin to them both—cousin-german to her, and a distant kinswoman to him also, which made it the greater sin. Ah, Mistress Edith! I do so well remember the sweet, white face that lay down on that pillow to die! and to think that they had shut the door on her, who were of her own blood!”
Edith was thinking of all these things sadly; her own young mother, and yonder gentle Mary—and contrastingtheir dim lot with the flashes of youthful hope, the bright vistas of sunny life which now and then through these last painful months had opened to herself. Might these not be all illusions—shadows and mists destined only to condense into darker gloom?
“Thou wouldst see yonder cavalier, I reckon, while thou wert in London?” said Dame Dutton, inquisitively. “Truly I did marvel within myself what the omen might be that ye were both journeying on one morrow—and they tell me he is a gracious youth, yonder Sir Philip, and hath a savor of godliness. He do begin to make the old house liker a dwelling for living folk, ’tis certain; for if spirits came back—I know not, Mistress Edith—the Word saith naught of whether they may—yonder dark rooms were most like a place for them; and he is a good master to his serving folk, and has a kind hand to the poor. How sayest thou of this gallant, sweetheart? thou hast marked him, I wot.”
“Nay I know not, Dame Dutton,” said Edith, blushing. “He did well among the sick, and served them; but in sooth no man, methinks, could have held back when he saw their misery.”
“Ay, ye have done wonderful, truly, for young folk,” said Dame Dutton, “a strange beginning I trow—but an it be to a good lot, Mistress Edith, never think more of the evil say I, for if it were ever so bad, it be past now, and should e’en be forgotten. But it glads me that thou dost like this gentleman—for all men speak kindly of him.”
“Nay, Dame Dutton,” said Edith eagerly, “I said not I liked him, more than it be needful. I like all who serve the one Lord—and as he is my kinsman—”
“Yea, sweatheart, did I trouble thee?” answered the Dame. “What didst think I meant, truly? and thou wouldst nothatethe gentleman sure—why shouldst thou?”
But Dame Dutton went about her household work thereafter with smiles and secret whispers—and Edith standing at the cottage door with a tremulous gladness about her heart, to look out upon the far stretching slopes of those blue hills of Cumberland, retreated to her own chamber, with a nervous haste, for which she could not very well account, when she saw her kinsman, Sir Philip Dacre, ascending the narrow pathway over the hills.
And so it came to pass ere long, that a second Edith Dacre entered the old halls of Thornleigh to be lady and mistress there, where her mother’s clouded youth had past. A dim beginning—yonder sad time of the plague in London, was indeed the dawning of a pleasant day.
And there followed sunny years—years of household quietness, of growing wisdom, and of such generous labor, full of all bounties and kindnesses, as doth become so well those gentlefolk of God’s appointing, whose errand is to bind together the different circles of His earth in the wide sympathies of one humanity. Never houseless man again sat vainly at the gate of Thornleigh, waiting the issue of his wearied wife’s petition, as he did once, whose manly head began to whiten within, under the snow of peaceful years. Never wayfarer sought shelter vainly—never poor turned without hope or help away. Gentle alms—deeds, and charities—gentler words of brotherhood and kindness—gentlest and highest, merciful teachings of the Gospel, fell pleasantly like summer dew about the old house of Thornleigh!
With his full share of the troubles of the times, imprisoned and fined for the Gospel he would not cease to preach, the Puritan minister yet lived on until the dawn of brighter days; and ere he closed his eyes in the third William’s lawful reign, saw both the blessings promised to the good man by the old Hebrew King and Poet—his children’s children, and peace upon Israel.
And brightening the dead array of olden titles in the ancestry of the house of Thornleigh stands pleasantly the gentle name of that Lady Edith whose time was the time of the plague; whose girlish valor does still communicate a generous youthful radiance to the old record, and whose fathers were of a stock of grave chivalry, nobler and of higher honor than those cavaliers of Worcester, and of Naseby, to whom alone we give the name. The haughty Lady Dacre, and all her pride and wealth, and greatness lie buried long ago in the grave of superficial things; but radiant in its purity of wisdom, godliness, and courage, the name of the youthful Puritan holds its place like a star, in the pedigree of those Dacres who dwell on the Border.
THE END.
OF
TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE
PUBLISHED BY
Harper & Brothers, Cliff Street, New York.
Travels and Adventures in Mexico,