CHAPTER VI.

“The tokened pestilence Where death is sure.” ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

The next 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 owner bowed 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 of more 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 she _is_ my 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 have me 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.”