CHAPTER V.

“She had a treasure Of wondrous coin--stamped with His gentle image Who is in heaven, and was on earth and spake As man ne’er spake but He. Ah, gentle words! kind utterance of pity! There are, who being poor, unto the poorer Are rich, having this wealth. Also there are Who being rich and bountiful, do lack Both thanks and love, because their naked alms-deeds Have 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 say _any_, 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 then I 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 energy in 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 her notes 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 accompanying him 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 of London. 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 I see, 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?