“She had a treasureOf wondrous coin—stamped with His gentle imageWho is in heaven, and was on earth and spakeAs man ne’er spake but He.Ah, gentle words! kind utterance of pity!There are, who being poor, unto the poorerAre rich, having this wealth. Also there areWho being rich and bountiful, do lackBoth thanks and love, because their naked alms-deedsHave no fair human robes of kindness on them.”
“She had a treasureOf wondrous coin—stamped with His gentle imageWho is in heaven, and was on earth and spakeAs man ne’er spake but He.Ah, gentle words! kind utterance of pity!There are, who being poor, unto the poorerAre rich, having this wealth. Also there areWho being rich and bountiful, do lackBoth thanks and love, because their naked alms-deedsHave no fair human robes of kindness on them.”
“She had a treasureOf wondrous coin—stamped with His gentle imageWho is in heaven, and was on earth and spakeAs man ne’er spake but He.Ah, gentle words! kind utterance of pity!There are, who being poor, unto the poorerAre rich, having this wealth. Also there areWho being rich and bountiful, do lackBoth thanks and love, because their naked alms-deedsHave no fair human robes of kindness on them.”
“And, please you, Mistress Edith,” said Mercy Rogers, as she reverently contemplated a handful of silver coins which Master Field had taken from the box, before he left the house with Vincent, “please you, Mistress Edith, is it for the poor?”
“Yes,” was the answer; “know you any, Mercy, that are in need of it?”
“Did you sayany, lady?” asked Mercy, wonderingly. “Alas! they say there be multitudes in London, now who are nigh starving, for the gentlefolk need not their servants any longer, and the masters have no work for their men; and I think, if it please you, Mistress Edith, that mayhap that is why they are ever thinking of the plague, for when I am idle, I think upon it also, and thenI am frighted, and feel that I shall surely die—but indeed no one knows.”
“Nay, if we be but ready for what God sends, Mercy,” said Edith, “that is in His hand, and not in ours. But now you must tell me who they are, that be in want.”
“There are the poor men, madam, that weave ribbons for the great gentlemen in Spitalfields; there is Ralph Tennison, and William, his brother, and Leonard Forster, who is married to their sister; they live all together in two cottages on this road, nigh to London, and Alice Saffron says there is no more work for them, and she saw Dame Forster and Ralph’s wife yester-morning crying over the little children, because in another week there would be no bread to give them, and they knew not what to do; and they say that poverty and want bring on the plague all the faster. And then there is Robert Turner and his daughters, who used to work for Master Featherstone, that makes the grand hangings and furnishings for gentlefolks’ houses; and Master Featherstone is fled away out of the city, and there are no other masters left, for Dame Saffron says folk dare not hang their houses with grand silk and damask now, for fear of a judgment. And there is Edward Overstone, that is a builder to his trade; and Alice Saffron, Mistress Edith, could tell you of so many more, that you would weep to hear of them.”
“Then you must bring Alice Saffron, Mercy,” said Edith, “and she will tell me their names, for now, you know, in this calamity we must help them all we can.”
Alice Saffron was a hardy, curious, enterprising girl, a little older than Mercy; she came readily at the call,and was eager to volunteer her information and aid. A sadly long list of names was completed by her help. Operatives of all classes, whom the flight of their masters, and the sudden cessation of traffic, had either thrown, or instantly threatened to throw into entire destitution, and hosts of servants, male and female, discharged from countless terror-stricken households, and now accumulating, a great, idle, despondent, hopeless mass, standing between the twain gulfs of famine and pestilence, with that fearful, unaccustomed leisure hanging heavy upon their hands, and full of terrified broodings over the deadly shadow that lowered upon them, and the inevitable evils of their lot.
“I preach in Aldgate to-morrow, Edith,” said Master Field, as they sat together that night in grave consultation; “the people are eager for daily services, and when every day is the last day of this world for many, it befits us to grant them their wish. We know not how long we may be able to continue our meetings; but even fear of the contagion, thank God, is less than their fear of His displeasure—their eagerness to hear the Word. I have engaged to undertake one day weekly; the rest, Master Vincent takes upon himself.”
“Daily preaching, father?” asked Edith.
“Yes, in this, and in other parish-churches through the city. He feels no weakness; he knows no fatigue in this necessity; he is like a man born for this special duty, Edith. It is not well to speak of presentiments, yet it seems as if, at this post of his, he were resolved to live and die. Master Franklin labors as incessantly, but the labor is different; there is a vehement, passionate energyin Titus Vincent. Well, the Lord spare him, I pray! he is a faithful workman.”
“And, father, do you visit the sick?” said Edith, anxiously.
“They tell me it is impossible, Edith. Master Vincent endeavored it at the first, and yet does so in some cases; but if it increases, as is now terribly threatened, I fear me it would be madness.”
“But, father, there are nurses, are there not?” said Edith, “and men whose office is about the dead; and if they venture thus—”
“Wherefore should not we?” said her father, as she paused; “indeed I know not, save that in the blunted sense of those attendants of the dead and dying, there seemeth a singular armor, Edith, which other mortals have not. But fear not for my shrinking. Wheresoever I am called, if it is not in foolhardiness, I shall go boldly; but it is said they have a hard measure in contemplation, which shall bar us forth from all sick beds. The Lord Mayor and Council, men say, will have all houses into which the plague enters, shut up.”
“Shut up, father?”
“It means divided by a rigorous watch from all intercourse with the world without: a hard thing—terrible to think upon. When the plague appears on one of a household, the whole must be excluded from all blessings of external life, from air, from breath, from means of escape—shut up within their own narrow walls, with the deadly foe beside them, polluting their very breath. A terrible measure, Edith, yet inevitable, as men say.”
“And, father, look at this,” said Edith, showing hernotes of many names of poverty-stricken households; “I fear me, Master Godliman’s treasure will soon be expended among these.”
“And this is thy chosen work, Edith,” said her father, sadly. “Woe is me! my child, that I grudge thee to this dedication! Edith! Edith! I would thou hadst more thought of thyself!”
“Nay, I have even too much,” said Edith, smiling; “for see you how I have robbed Dame Rogers of her perfumes; and see you further, father, what a great flask of vinegar I have gotten for myself withal, so that I shall even do what they say of the Morning in the poets’ books, and scatter odors when I go abroad. And I would fain begin, if it please you, father; wherefore will you give me the counsel you promised for my errand?”
Master Field was deeply moved: he needed some moments to compose himself. “I can give you no special counsel, Edith; I can only pray you, as you value God’s precious gift of life, given us for other ends than the pleasure of our own wayward will, that you use all caution in your work. Be careful of entering any house: be careful of speaking to any stranger whom you need not to speak withal; keep those odors you spoke of about you continually. Edith, I say I can give you no special counsel; only remember that, save thyself, I have naught in this wide earth, and be tender of thy young health, of thy fragile ability, my sole child!”
So the next morning (it was the second day of June), the youthful Puritan donned her black silk hood and mantle with a beating heart, and prepared to begin her labor. Her father had positively forbidden her accompanyinghim to church; there was no duty there, as he truly said, that she should thrust herself into peril. So she filled the little leathern bag, which was Dame Rogers’s purse on market-days, with Master Godliman’s silver coins, and fortified with her perfumes, and having her handkerchief slightly wetted from her vinegar-flask—more from the youthful excitement of novelty than any serious reason—she left her apartment to set out on her errand.
Below, a controversy was going on between Dame Rogers and her daughter. When Edith descended the stairs, she found Mercy standing with her hood in her hand. Her mother was remonstrating,
“And wherefore should’st thou, my child Mercy? And why would’st thou go break thy poor mother’s heart, because the young lady will put herself into danger? I trow it is none of thy blame; and would’st thou leave us desolate in our old age, all for the sake of Mistress Edith? Ah! Mercy! Mercy!”
“But mother, there will be no danger. Please you, Mistress Edith to tell my mother, how you have promised to Master Field to have care and caution; and there will be no peril; I am sure there will not, mother. I do not fear.”
“Hush! Mercy,” said Edith, gently; “you must not go, be there danger, or be there none. I desire not to peril your daughter, Dame Rogers. I pray you believe me so.”
Dame Rogers’s heart smote her. “I would go with thee myself, Mistress Edith, but indeed I am frighted; and I would do thee more harm than good, truly, for I am but a weak body; and Mercy—I have but one, Mistress Edith—none but she! and the two of ye, girls that might be dealing with gentler matters than this life and death. Ah! Mistress Edith!”
“Do not fear, dame,” said Edith; “Mercy must not go with me. I will peril no life but my own.”
But therewith the timid and tender-hearted Dame Rogers, burst into a flood of tears, bewailing feebly the danger into which the young lady was about to thrust herself, in the midst of which Edith withdrew, eager to begin her labor, and adding to the good dame’s tears and remonstrances, her own injunction to Mercy, not to follow her.
The ribbon-weavers, were a full mile away, nearer the bounds of the stricken city. Edith had a general knowledge of all her father’s parishioners, though the two years which she had spent in Cumberland had made her less familiar with them individually; but Ralph Tennison, a man more intelligent than his class generally were in those days, had always been a favorite with Master Field. Looking through the open doors of those cottages, as they stood on the margin of the hot and dusty high-road, she could see the painful marks of listless indolence within. In one of the little gardens, indeed, Ralph Tennison, the stouter-hearted of the three, was gravely at work, tending some simple flowers, now that there was nothing else to tend; but within, unshaven, unwashed, and slovenly, she saw the other men. One was lounging over the fire, hot June morrow as it was, in the busy housewife’s way as she went about preparing their homely meal; while the other, leaning upon the window-frame, was poring over one of those uncouth broadsheets, threatening unheard-of calamities to the city and nation, which had so considerable a part in exciting the fears of the common people ofLondon. Edith could hear the rising of a quarrel as she approached,
“For goodness sake, I tell thee, Lennard,” cried the irritated house-mother, as for the third or fourth time she had nearly fallen over her husband’s lazy length of limb, “take thy long body somewhere else, and be not always in the gate! What good canst thou do, gazing into the pot with thy hungry eyes? Thou won’t keep it long boiling, I trow; for where thou’s to get another meal I wot not. God help us!”
“I believe thou wouldst rather I went out into the streets and died, than trouble thee,” said the husband bitterly.
“Hear him, hear him!” cried the injured wife; “an’ he thought not so of me, wherefore should he fancy that I could have such an evil thought of him?”
“Hold your peace, ye fools,” said her brother, sullenly. “Is not the judgment at our very doors, and will ye quarrel which shall be first taken?”
Edith had entered Ralph’s trimmer garden, and began to speak to him.
“It is true she says,” said the man, sadly. “An’ it were not for the terror we’ve all gotten of it, I’d be almost glad to welcome this plague, Mistress Edith; for it’s a pitiful sight to see hungry children; and where they’re to get another meal I know not.”
“And is there no hope of work?” said Edith.
“None, none,” said the man, with a kind of stern derision; “for what are gentlefolk like to care for such wares as ours, when they’re flying for their lives? and for us that can’t fly—why we must e’en stay and starve, for aught Isee, till the plague comes and frees us, and that won’t be long, as men say.”
Some gentle words of kindness melted this rough mood. Ralph Tennison turned away his head, and faltered in his speech; for what he said was true—they were stationary between famine and the plague, all the more liable to the attack of the one, because they were weakened by the other.
The wives came to the doors, one by one, as they perceived Edith. She inquired after the health of their families—the inquiry meant something in those days—and gave them money. They received it in eager joy and gratitude. A little longer she remained with them; and giving them gentle counsel, and one kind word of warning more solemn than that, went on her further way.
The next name on her list was that of Robert Turner, an old man with a large family of daughters, who had earned his bread by working for a famous and fashionable manufacturer of furniture, patronized by the luxurious courtiers of Charles. The door was jealously closed when she reached the house. Edith knocked gently. The eldest of the daughters, a faded, thin, pale woman, growing old, cautiously opened it, and, holding it ajar, stood, as it seemed, guarding the entrance.
“Are you all well, Dorothy? We have newly come home again, and I called to see you,” said Edith, with some shyness.
“I thank you, Mistress Edith, we are well,” said Dorothy, gravely; “and even right glad we were, for all so sad as the cause is, to see your good father in his own place once more.”
“But they tell me this great pestilence is bringing trouble on you, Dorothy,” began Edith, with embarrassment.
“And if it bring trouble, Mistress Edith, we must e’en seek strength to bear it,” said the woman, with a spasmodic motion of the head. “I know not that we have been heard to complain.”
“Nay, nay, I meant not so,” said Edith; “it was, I heard—and pray you think I only speak of it in all kindness—I heard that because the great masters and the court were flying from town, there was like to be lack of labor, and perchance want; and so I came to say, Dorothy, that if you wanted aught, or your father, or your sisters, that I have wherewith to help you; and that was all.”
“And truly I crave your pardon, Mistress Edith,” said Dorothy, her features moving hysterically, “if I did speak in haste, not thinking what I said—for it is a sad time—ay, doubtless, a time of great fear, and trouble, and darkness; and it is true that Master Featherstone has gone away, and there is no more work for us; and our Phœbe, who was in the great house, up by Westminster, has come home to us this morning, because her lady hath fled into Kent, and could not take all her women with her; and without doubt it is a hard time. I will think upon your kindness, Mistress Edith, and heartily thank you, that had the thought of coming to us, who deserved not any remembrance at your hands: but now, I thank Providence, we need not any thing. God forgive me! I meant of silver or gold—for we have yet enough of that; and truly for such things as health and safety, they are not to be got in mortal gift.”
“But you have not heard of the distemper coming hither, Dorothy?” asked Edith.
“The Almighty knows; who can answer for it, whether it will come or stay.”
“Dorothy!” cried a sharp voice in the passage behind her, shrill and broken with excitement and fear, “look to Phœbe. Lord have mercy! what is coming upon us?”
“It is naught,” said Dorothy, with forced composure, looking fixedly in Edith’s face. “She is grieved for the loss of her mistress, foolish girl, and hath made her head ache with weeping. I thank you heartily, Mistress Edith, and bid you good-morrow.”
The door was closed; with a thrill of fear, which she could not suppress, Edith went on.
The day was considerably advanced before she returned home. She had met with much poverty, but no traces of the pestilence, and had been followed by many thanks and blessings from miserable households to whom her gifts imparted some new hope. She found her father busied with plans for his especial work, and beside him lay another letter from Master Godliman, intimating that his gift should be renewed from time to time. All that these men could do of Christian zeal and liberality, patience and fortitude, were at work to mitigate the severity of the judgment, and they did much; but what was it all before the mighty advancing tide of God’s wrath and vengeance?
“The tokened pestilenceWhere death is sure.”Antony and Cleopatra.
“The tokened pestilenceWhere death is sure.”Antony and Cleopatra.
“The tokened pestilenceWhere death is sure.”Antony and Cleopatra.
Thenext day—this time with a little less excitement, a quieter knowledge of what was likely to be required of her, Edith Field again went forth to her labor. In so little time as the one previous day, Dame Rogers had bewailed herself into familiarity with the danger to which the young lady was exposed, and roused to the honor of having so beneficent a visitor issuing from her humble house, by an application from Alice Saffron, pleading to be received as Mistress Edith’s attendant in her missions of charity, Dame Rogers withdrew her interdict, and falteringly bade Mercy go. So, in despite of Edith’s reluctance, Mercy Rogers accompanied her on the second day.
Master Field was preaching again in the pulpit of another over-burdened brother, whose eager people craved the word more constantly than one man’s strength could administer it. He had been already called to visit many families, still free of the infection but trembling for it, who begged his instructions and sympathy and prayers. The Puritan’s hands were full.
Edith and Mercy had gone far and seen many people—much poverty, misery, hopelessness—but nothing yet happily of the plague. Listless want and indolence ripe for it and waiting, some overborne with unmanly terror, some profanely bold, some subdued, penitent, and humble, while every where there was the same fear, every where a deadly certainty of its coming. Much, too, they heard of this stern measure for shutting up infected houses, which the people, in the selfishness of their terror, considered only as a means of safety for themselves and applauded highly, and many stories, often grotesquely horrible, of those frightful details of the pestilence, which the vulgar mind of the time delighted to dwell on.
They had reached the bounds of the city in their visitation; they were returning at last by the high road. A short time before they reached the house of the Turners, at which Edith had called the previous day, they met a singular group, about whose rear, as they proceeded with some pomp toward London, a little crowd eager and yet afraid, tremulously hovered. The two principal persons wore the garb of respectable citizens; grave, thoughtful, important men. A slight red rod was in the hand of each; and there was a subdued solemnity and pomp about their mien, the importance of office in its first novelty overcoming the fear of the terrible occasion which brought them hither.
“Who are they, Mercy?” asked Edith, anxiously, as she with difficulty kept her young companion from the crowd.
“Oh! heaven save us!—the examiners!—the examiners! it has come!” cried a woman beside them, wringing her hands.
Edith shrank back hastily to the foot-road, holding Mercy’s hand.
“Oh, what will become of us!” said Mercy, with a suppressed scream, “look, Mistress Edith, look!”
Edith looked up. Upon the house at whose door they were standing, appeared the terrific red cross, and solemn supplication, “Lord have mercy upon us,” of which they had heard so much as the sign of those places shut up, infected with the plague. It was no longer fear but certainty: the pestilence had come!
Near the door, sullenly reserved and silent, stood the man appointed to watch. Edith perceived, as she recoiled from its vicinity in terror, that it was Ralph Tennison.
“Who is it, Ralph?” she asked.
“Speed ye away from this, Mistress Edith,” said the man hastily; “wherefore should ye be in peril more than ye need? It is Phœbe Turner, that came yestermorn from Westminster; she has brought it into the midst of us. But haste ye home, Mistress Edith, I say.”
It was indeed the house which Edith had left the day before, with such a thrill of fear.
“And why are you here, Ralph?” she said. “For the little children’s sake, go home.”
“Better earn honest wages than live on good folks’ charity, when there’s enow widows and helpless to take it all,” said Ralph; “and better die like a man, doing work while there’s breath in me, than starve yonder idle like a dog. I’m watchman here, Mistress Edith, and here I must needs stay, die or live.”
“But the children, Ralph?” said Edith.
The man’s strong features moved convulsively.
“They must take their chance with the rest,” he said, with a stern composure; “they can but die—and God knows who will be left, child or grown man, afore all is done!”
The window above was thrown open as he spoke; the father of the stricken household, altered in this one night, to a paralyzed, broken fatuous man, looked out in feeble despair.
“Good neighbors,” cried the old man, wringing his shriveled hands, “pray for my child—my Phœbe—my youngest-born! Oh, the Lord have mercy! I have sinned—I have sinned these seventy years—and now it has come!”
He was drawn in from behind. Edith saw Dorothy’s faded, thin face, stern and calm in the gravity of its despair, look down upon her for a moment; then there was a hasty motion of her hand, warning her away, and then the window was carefully closed.
“Ah, mother!” cried Mercy Rogers, rushing in breathlessly to her mother’s cottage; “it has come! it has come!”
“What has come, child?” said the dame, rising hastily, “and where hast thou left Mistress Edith—sweet lady—and what ails thee, that thou art so pale? Thou art not ill, Mercy? My child! my child! say not thou art sick!”
“Not yet, mother,” said Mercy, sadly, “and Mistress Edith is on the way, only I fled from her because I was frighted; for, oh, mother! it has come! the Plague! the terrible Plague!”
“The Lord have mercy upon us!” exclaimed Dame Rogers, pressing her hands upon her heart; “what shall we do? what shall we do?”
“Only be calm, and do not be afraid,” said Edith, entering the cottage, very grave, and very pale. “Know you, Dame Rogers, that this panic inviteth the pestilence? Sit down and be still; it is not near us yet, and surely we know, dame, that this plague hath no power to slay one more than those appointed of God.”
Dame Rogers sat down, overawed by the command, and Mercy turned away, ashamed and penitent, while Edith calmly shut the door, and sitting down, loosed her hood.
“And please you, lady, who is it?” asked Dame Rogers, humbly, as she endeavored in vain to conceal the quick and frightened coming of her breath.
“Will you let me tell you first, Dame Rogers, what Doctor Newton said to my father? Fear, he said, made us feeble, so that, when the evil came, we could but sink, like as straw sinks before a flame, and could not resist; but when we were bold, and of good hope, alway having a strong confidence in Him who can kill and make alive, and waiting what he shall send, that then the pestilence had less might, and there was liker to come deliverance. Wherefore I pray you, good dame, have courage and hope, and remember how mighty He is, who doth save us.”
“I thank thee, Mistress Edith,” murmured Dame Rogers.
“It is Phœbe Turner,” continued Edith; “I remember she was wont to have fair hair, and a merry face, and was something of your years, Mercy; is it not so?”
“Nay, Mistress Edith,” said Dame Rogers, eagerly,“she’s a good five year older than my Mercy, I warrant you. It’s nineteen year—ay, nineteen year come Lammastide, since Dame Turner died (and she was an old woman then to have young children), and my Mercy is but sixteen.”
“But Mistress Edith hath not seen them, mother,” said Mercy, apologetically, “since she went away from Hampstead, and Phœbe hath been with the great lady in Westminster, I know not how many years. Alas, poor Phœbe! they say she came home but yestermorning, and she had gotten the plague before she came; and now they be all shut up with her, and Dame Saffron says they are sure to die, for Ralph Tennison is watching by the door, and no one dare go out or come in, and all of them sound but she, shut in with the plague!”
And Mercy sat down in renewed terror and sorrow, and began to weep. Dame Rogers would fain have joined her, but the awe of Edith’s presence and command restrained the weakness. Edith was burning a handful of perfumes, and sprinkling her own dress and Mercy’s with vinegar, the little commotion made by this, diverted the anxious dame from her brooding, and roused her to prepare necessary refreshment for her two youthful heroes—her own Mercy, alas! being by this time, an exceedingly timid and wavering one.
While she was thus employed, some one knocked at the door. Mercy and her mother started in fear. Edith went cautiously to open it.
The rich dress of the person who stood without; the sudden doffing of his bonnet, the long plumes of which swept over Dame Rogers’s budding roses, as its ownerbowed low and reverently to the young Puritan, standing in her nun-like simplicity of apparel within, bewildered her for a moment. Then she recognized Sir Philip Dacre, the companion of their journey from Cumberland, and gravely bade him enter. Her father, for whom he asked, she expected very soon.
Dame Rogers withdrew herself and her daughter into another apartment in jealous fear.
“Save us! one knows not where the cavalier may have been—and an he be a lord, he might carry the pestilence as ready as a serving-man. Get thee to thy chamber, Mercy; if he is known to Mistress Edith she must even take the peril to herself.”
“But, mother,” hesitated Mercy, “Mistress Edith is so good and gentle, it is hard-hearted to leave her.”
“Thou would’st not have staid in yonder grand cavalier’s presence, I trow?” said her mother. “I will tarry here lest Mistress Edith call, and there is the perfume burning in the chamber that will be a protection to her, but thou wouldest not have had us tarry to listen to all the noble gentleman might say?”
Mercy went up-stairs, scarcely deceived by her mother’s elaborate sophisms; and the good dame remained timidly in her kitchen, bathing her hands and forehead with vinegar, and ejaculating under her breath, fears, prayers, wishes, and resolves—very natural if not the most coherent in the world, while Edith, with a good deal of embarrassment, remained alone with the stranger.
The unexplained connection subsisting between his family and hers—the wrong so mysteriously alluded to, which since their coming here, with so many matters ofmore immediate weight to occupy them, she had had no opportunity of speaking of to her father—increased the natural shyness, which in spite of her ready devotion and fearless carrying out of the dangerous work she had begun, ever reasserted its girlish pre-eminence in all matters of common life. So Edith drooped her head as she bade the young cavalier seat himself, and cast furtive glances from the window upon the road, looking for her father, much as other maidens of her years would have been likely to do.
“It is a sad peril this, Mistress Edith, for one so young as you,” said Sir Philip, with a kindred hesitation. “Yonder lonely dell in Cumberland would be thought a blessed refuge by many in these times, who might bear more than you, if years made courage.”
“Nay, we are together now,” said Edith, quickly; “and there is none other of our blood in all the world to weep for us.”
“Ah, Mistress Edith, say not so,” said the young man, a flush of deep shame covering his face.
Edith could only wonder—she did not answer.
“My mother—but it becomes me not to speak to you of my mother—”
“Wherefore, Sir Philip?”
Edith forgot her shyness so far as to turn from the window, and look at him in astonishment.
“Because it must be pain to you to hear her name spoken in love and kindness; and sheismy mother.”
“Nay,” said Edith, earnestly, “in sooth I know not aught of the Lady Dacre save her name, and wherefore should there be pain to me in that?”
“Is it so?” exclaimed Sir Philip, rising from his seat, “is it indeed so? Then you know not that there is a kindred between—you know not. Ah, Mistress Edith, I believed not there could be charity so great as this!”
Edith was startled.
“I pray you be seated, Sir Philip; my father will be here anon: and truly I know not what you say, nor what is this that my father hath hidden from me; but indeed he hath said naught to me at any time of the Lady Dacre, and it is but of late that I have heard so much as her name. And has she left this terror-stricken place, that you speak of her thus, Sir Philip?”
“Nay, nay,” said the young man, checking himself as he resumed his seat. “She is proud and bold, Mistress Edith, and defies this deadly enemy, who will not brook mortal defiance. I have urged her with all my might to escape this peril, but she will not hear me; and the more I entreat, she doth but stand the firmer, and I must submit.”
“And you?” said Edith—there was beginning to spring up a confidence of youthful friendship between the twain.
“I also must surely stay,” said Sir Philip; “not that I would choose it, but that I will not leave my mother here alone; and I came to Master Field to ask if I could serve in any way—for you shame us, Mistress Edith, with your gentle valor.”
“Ah, yonder is my father,” said Edith, “and Master Chester, Sir Philip, who is in Westminster; “I will tell them of your coming,” and she went forth hastily to meet them.
“And is it thou, gentle Philip Dacre, mine old pupil,” said Master Chester, entering, his trim dress not a whit less particular than when all was prosperous health and peace in London; “and where hast thou been spending thy green years, my good youth? preparing for thy grave years, as I shall trust, and laying up stores that shall not fade, for the solace of those times that shall fade; thou art well met, Sir Philip. And what say they in old Oxford to those changes? They will bethink themselves, doubtless, of how they were clouded at our rising, and will e’en deem it rare justice that we should be clouded at our falling; but we live yet, thou seest.”
“And will, I trust, in better times,” said the young man, pressing warmly the hand of his old tutor, whom he had last seen in the classic halls of Oxford, and breathing a still atmosphere of academic ease and leisure, very different from the present scene.
“At our Master’s will—as He pleaseth shall be best,” was the answer. “But what doest thou in this peril, gentle Philip? Truly there is much to learn, but the school is hard; and if I do rightly remember thou didst of old affect most such lessons as were brief, and that in a school right easy for those of blood like thine. But get thee away to thy hills, good youth, with such speed as thou may’st, for here is naught but men dying, and men dreading, and oftentimes, alas! men dying for very dread.”
“Nay, Master Chester,” said his former pupil, “here I must remain. My mother is in Westminster, and will not leave it, and without her I am resolute not to return to Cumberland. I did but come to offer my services, if I can do aught, to Master Field—for you would not haveme shrink, good sir, from perils which this youthful gentlewoman braves without trembling.”
“And in sooth, this youthful gentlewoman is a wayward child withal,” said Master Chester, laying his hand caressingly on Edith’s dark hair, “and truly it were better that thou should’st convey her with thee to the shelter of yonder healthful Cumberland hills, than that her willful example should keep thee within the pestilent bounds of this doomed London. What sayest thou, Mistress Edith? My good sister, Magdalene Chester, hath taken my little ones into her house in Surrey. My Mary is thine elder by a year, and wont to have a childish charge of thee, when thou wert over-young to be undutiful, as thy father remembereth well, I warrant him. But now, little maiden, be but a dutiful child and I will delegate to thee my authority over her, in yonder quiet house in Surrey. Thou wilt not say me nay, Mistress Edith? Thou wilt take the charge I give thee of my little ones, yonder in Surrey?”
“Nay, nay, reverend sir,” said Edith, hastily; “I must not leave my father.”
“I hear it gathers strength day by day,” said Master Field to Sir Philip, as Master Chester continued his unavailing remonstrances with Edith; “and I pray you linger not, Sir Philip, until flight may nothing avail you; for unless you had a special charge of these perishing people, as I have and my brethren, it is but tempting God to tarry. It is in His hand, surely; but save those who can minister healing to their stricken bodies, and those who have it in charge to speak of grace and deliverance to their sad souls, I would bid all who may, withdraw themselves from this afflicted place; for an’ they do not good they do evil,seeing that every man smitten with this plague, who might have timely withdrawn himself, is but another loss to this impoverished nation.”
“But my mother!” said Sir Philip, looking dubiously at the Puritan.
“Thy mother! Is she so eager then to meet with yonder multitude in the heavens? is she so ready to stand before yonder pure throne? Ah! for the sake of one whose gentle heart, methinks, even there, would bleed to accuse her, pray her to fly!”
“Thy daughter, brother Field, is over-strong for me,” said Master Chester, turning from Edith with some moisture glistening in his keen dark eye. “Pray God she be not over-weak to try conclusions with a bitter adversary. Truly, brother, when these little ones grow valorous, I have a hope in me that God meaneth them to be victorious; and true it is that what doth but overcome our weaker parts, bringing womanish tears, doth oftentimes overcome the stronger parts of those afflictions, bringing deliverance—wherefore, we must e’en suffer her will, trusting that in it the Lord may manifest His will, and committing the little one whom God has given us, to the keeping of the God who gave her to us. Amen, and amen.”
“It is the business of a gentleman to be hospitable, following those noble gentlemen Abraham and Lot. It is his business to maintain peace, whereto he hath that brave gentleman, Moses, recommended for his pattern. It is his business to promote the welfare and prosperity of his country with his best endeavors, and with all his interest; in which practice the Sacred History doth propound divers gallant gentlemen (Joseph, Moses, Nehemiah, and all such renowned patriots), to guide him.”—Barrow.
“It is the business of a gentleman to be hospitable, following those noble gentlemen Abraham and Lot. It is his business to maintain peace, whereto he hath that brave gentleman, Moses, recommended for his pattern. It is his business to promote the welfare and prosperity of his country with his best endeavors, and with all his interest; in which practice the Sacred History doth propound divers gallant gentlemen (Joseph, Moses, Nehemiah, and all such renowned patriots), to guide him.”—Barrow.
Sir Philip Dacrewas of a class uncommon in those times. His father, whom report called a weak and ordinary man, with only the one gift of personal courage to distinguish him—and it scarcely did distinguish him among the host of cavaliers, whose sole standing-ground was this same gift of bravery—had fought his last at Worcester. Philip, a studious boy, dwelling alone in his earlier youth in the old, dark library at Thornleigh, and finally sent to spend long solitary years in Oxford, a stranger to all home or family enjoyments, had grown up a grave, imaginative student, with a sound and strong intellect, which rejoiced scarce less in those mighty things which Newton had but lately brought forth from the great ocean of the unknown, than in those wonderful human folk, with whom the poets of Elizabeth’s golden time had peopled many countries. He was of the class (scarce so courtly perhaps as the quaint olden gentleman, who has put it on record, that thehistory of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was not sufficiently refined for the Court of Charles) of Evelyn, and his brother philosophers; not devoted to any one especial science, but with lively interest in, and considerable knowledge of them all—a youthful neophyte, who had not quite penetrated into the charmed circle of the juvenile Royal Society, then being formed; but who hung with eager curiosity and interest in its outer round. His travels in the simple North, and his late visit to Scotland, had given the Oxford scholar a strong leaning to the persecuted Presbyterians; and having had enshrined in his remembrance all his days, the object of his boyish sympathy and tears, the gentle memory of the young wife of Caleb Field, her story threw a charm over her people, and her faith, counteracting the prejudices in which he had been bred, and shining with a steady light round the stout head of the husband, who had mourned for her so truly. From which causes it resulted that Sir Philip Dacre, kept in London by the bold hardihood and temerity of his mother, chose to put himself under the guidance of the Puritan. As a youth he had, in youthful curiosity, advanced some considerable way in the study of medicine. Master Field’s steady friend, Dr. Newton, when it was found impossible to induce the young man to leave London, made some use of his willing services; for the office of physician was an office of strenuous never-ceasing labor in those perilous times.
The terrible days went on; the plague grew round them, spreading like wild-fire. Phœbe Turner, and three of her sisters, were laid in the indiscriminate grave, which was all now that could be given to the victims of the pestilence. The old, fatuous, broken-hearted father, and the faded, despairing elder sister, were all that remained of the household. Dorothy, sad and calm, and outwardly unmurmuring, had become a nurse, and going from death-bed to death-bed in stern impunity, earned bread for the helpless old man, at peril of her life. Other households in Hampstead had rendered the best-beloved to that dread enemy. Other houses had been emptied of their inhabitants by his stroke; the red mark of his presence was already upon many dwellings.
But Edith’s heart did not fail. Strong in her girlish devotion, she remembered not the danger, for pity of those hosts of dying, suffering poor, who, utterly broken down with want and terror, lay helpless and hopeless, waiting for the plague. Many of them already, like Ralph Tennison, were earning a weekly pittance at deadly risk, as watchmen of infected houses; but many more received from her constant ministrations their principal sustenance. The good citizen, Godliman, himself afraid to peril his life in the vicinity of the contagion, sent his gold liberally for their relief, little knowing that the administrator was a delicate girl; and many other such benefactors there were, and other such almoners. No longer food only, but medical attendance, the service of nurses, medicines; all these Edith had to provide for. She entered few houses; she used all the ordinary means of prevention, and so her daily labors had yet produced no evil effect.
She was seated in her chamber one evening, preparing to retire to rest, when that month of June was drawing to a close. Mercy, lying on her little pallet near her, was looking up to her with youthful admiration, and someslight tinge of tear. The soft, full moonlight streamed through the latticed window; the whole world lay silvered in it, at peace and very still.
The wheels of some heavy vehicle, solemn and slow, were passing along the deserted road; then the clear echoes gave forth the hoarse tinkling of a bell. The silvery night-air seemed to soften it; yet the two girls in their quiet chamber shrank and trembled, and looked fearfully, in silent terror, into each other’s faces.
Then there followed a voice, inarticulate in the distance. Alas! they knew too well what those terrible words would be. The sound came nearer—nearer; and Mercy started from her bed, and throwing herself at Edith’s feet, clasped her arms round her in the convulsive dependence of fear, as the voice rang sharp into the silent house: “Bring forth your dead!”
A monotonoususualcry to which the men had become terribly familiar, forgetting its horror—the sign of their sad vocation. It was the first time it had been heard in Hampstead, and the calamity was now fully come.
Preaching day by day, fervent, untiring, strong, laboring in concert with his daughter in her mission of charity, venturing to speak comfort to the stricken at their very death-beds, the Puritan minister of Hampstead rested not, night nor day. And thus it advanced, by gradual degrees, and raged upon every side around them, while from the eastern quarters of the city, tidings came quick and frequent, of parish after parish smitten; now here, now there, marching on, resistless and omnipotent, breaking the feeble barriers set up to restrain it; cutting down, in dread rapidity, its thousands in a night, until at last themaddened people threw off all the restraints of prudence, and going about in a wild despair, more terrible than their former fears, proclaimed the blind confidence they had in the final extermination of all life from London. It was but a question of time, they said. Churches which had been shut when the pestilence reached to so fearful a height that men could not stir abroad without the deadliest peril, were opened again, and crowded with solemn congregations fearlessly despairing. The same spirit, in a less profane degree, came upon the two devoted faculties—physicians and clergymen. They began to have no hope—scarcely any expectation of surviving, and the great matter with them was, how to accomplish the most labor before the call should come.
But, if all his brethren were bold and unwearying, the preacher, Vincent, was inspired. With the desperate energy and daring of a doomed man, he labored. No case so terrible that he refused to visit it; no sinful dying man so dangerous, but he would carry him those burning, living words, which could come from no lips but those of one who himself stood upon the very brink, and was conversant with the Powers of the world to come. Praying only to be taken last, that he might labor to the end, he preached, and prayed, and exhorted, through well-nigh every hour of those long days of summer; in the churches, in the streets, wherever men would pause to listen, the overwhelming torrent of his earnestness poured itself forth—impetuous, vivid, bold—the apostle of the time.
Less known, and less observed, his neighbor, Master Franklin, labored with stubborn Saxon perseverance, and an obstinacy of purpose altogether his own. Theafflatusof enthusiastic zeal—the prophet-like might and vehement eloquence of the man who felt that on this forlorn hope he must die, was wanting in the case of his honest, laborious brother; and the duller man was the greater hero—because his work was done for the sole love of the Master who gave it, and not because itself was dear to the plain and loyal soul who made head bravely against all surrounding evils, for his Lord’s sake.
And, strangely trim and dainty amid all these horrors, the gentle Master Chester held on valorously upon his own especial way. Something more cautious, perchance, than those—no whit less manful and courageous; the diverse moods laboring alike under the guidance of the One Divine and beneficent Spirit.
It needs not that we should dwell upon the dark details of a picture never equaled in our country for the magnitude of its miseries; how households disappeared, leaving behind no survivor to mourn for the dead; how grass grew green, and lonely echoes took up their dwelling in the once crowded streets of olden London; and how, from the consideration of earth’s most mighty city, there suddenly vanished all subjects of mortal interest, shriveling up like faded leaves before the fiery breathing of that universal Death. How, in the dreadful silence, the voice of God fell audibly upon the tingling ear of the distressed and trembling city, and how men came to know in those days—whatsoever they may have dreamed or doubted before—that beyond that present death stood a throne of righteous judgment, from whose tribunal their coward souls shrank and faltered, having a consciousness within less easily silenced than the voice of any other preacher—of sin. They could not shirk the knowledge then; old truths stood out so eternally alive and solemn, under the tracing of that dull, leaden light of death.
When the household parted at night in the Hampstead cottage, there were solemn farewells said; none knew if they should meet again upon the morrow. The youthful Mercy, more ardent than her mother, had overcome her first fears; she still waited upon Edith with eager reverence and admiration; but she went forth with her no more, Edith desiring this as heartily as did Dame Rogers herself. Hitherto, the plague had not approached them, and John Goodman cherished his guests as the olden prince and patriarch cherished the angels whom he entertained unawares.
They were a blessing to the humble house that sheltered them—and so thought his kindly, timid sister, though she feared these frequent visitations, which exposed her young guest to all manner of perils, and scarcely thought the danger of dwelling beside one who relieved many smitten households every day, counterbalanced by the efficacy of the good man’s prayers—the daily supplications in which the minister craved the protection of God.
July, August—serene and beautiful—the brightest time of all the year, passed on, drawing out its long, fair days in torment, rising and sinking on such woeful sufferers as never English skies beheld before. The mellow days of September had begun. Upon one soft harvest evening, when the moon was already in the sky, though the heavens were still bright with ruddy sunshine, Edith was returning weary from her labor. The pestilence was reaching its height—still rising, alas! Her road lay betweentwo fields, along the extreme verge of one of which, was the highway to London. It was a very lonely, quiet by-way, a little raised from the level of the fields, bordered with old hawthorns bending down over them; and the air about her was fresh, and sweet, and healthful, hushed with the calm of the sunset.
She was not far from home when Sir Philip Dacre joined her; the rich dress of his rank was laid aside; he wore plain apparel, like some humble scholar, or member of the grave profession, to which, in reality, in this exigent time he belonged. He had not been sparing of his time or strength; but at even greater peril than his ministerial friends, had labored faithfully as an assistant to Doctor Newton ever since he made up his mind to remain in London.
“Is the Lady Dacre still dwelling in Westminster?” asked Edith, when, after some conversation on the one great matter which occupied all minds and thoughts, they had walked on for some time in silence.
“My mother!” said Sir Philip. “Alas! Mistress Edith I find it impossible to move her. She knows not fear; and now when she has remained so long in safety, her over-boldness is increased; so that I hope only for the ebbing of this evil tide, which as learned men of the faculty calculate—if we may dare to calculate that which hath its rising and its falling in the good-will of God—should reach to its highest flood ere long. God send it were but ebbing, or surely the despair of this people will make them mad.”
“What is that?” said Edith, anxiously: “heard ye not a moan?”
They paused to listen; it was repeated; a low cry of infinite agony scarcely to be borne.
Sir Philip advanced to the edge of the pathway; there, low down under cover of an old, drooping tree of hawthorn, lay a smitten woman, writhing in the torments of the plague.
“Come not near me,” she exclaimed, as they stood together, looking down upon her in pity and terror. “Come not near me, I say, but let me die in peace. Ah! they say it is I who have carried it in my blood; they say it is I who have brought the poison to my little ones. I that would have died—would to God that I had died!—to save them from a pang—oh! the Lord have mercy; they say it is I—I when I came here to tend them, that have slain my children.”
And extending her arms with a wild cry, she threw herself forward on the grass, burying her face in her hands.
“What can we do?” said Edith. “I dare not carry her home; what can we do?”
“I will go to see, if there is any hope,” said Sir Philip, gravely.
She was moaning lower, and with an exhausted, feeble voice. He descended, and lifted her from the ground, while Edith stood leaning on the tree, looking on in anxious silence.
“She is saved,” said the young physician, as he laid the fainting, feeble woman softly back on the turf, and pointed to where the sharp edge of a flint had cut open a tumor in her neck. “Her violence and despair have saved her. I pray you hasten home, Mistress Edith. I will have herconveyed to some place of safety, but come not into this peril; ye have over many without this.”
“I will bring you help,” said Edith, as she turned quickly away.
She had not gone far when she met Dorothy Turner; and to her Edith told the story.
“I came forth even to seek for her, Mistress Edith,” said Dorothy. “It was a rash apothecary did tell the poor gentlewoman that she had carried the pestilence to her children; they are all dead, the little ones—all but the least of all—and the agony crazed her; no marvel! and she fled out thus to die. But says the gentleman that she is saved? God help us, how He worketh! I never thought to have heard that word of one smitten with the plague. Speed thee home, Mistress Edith, and come not nigh her. She is saved!”
And such terrible wanderers in those suburban fields were fearfully usual during those fatal days of summer; lying down in their madness to die.