CHAPTER VII.

“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 Dacre was 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 the history 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 some slight 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 monotonous _usual_ cry 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 the maddened 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. The _afflatus_ of 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 between two 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 her conveyed 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.