"Brother Reuben, I cannot think what can be the reason, but my Lady
Scrope has bidden me beg of thee to give her speech upon the
morrow. All this day she has been in a mighty pleasant humour: she
gave me this silken neckerchief when I left today, and bid me bring
my brother with me on the morrow--and she means thee, Reuben."
"What can be the meaning of that?" asked Rachel Harmer, with a look
of curiosity. "Doth she often speak to thee of thy kindred, child?"
"If the whim be on her, and she has naught else to amuse her, she
will bid me tell of the life at home, and of our neighbours and
friends," answered Dorcas. "But never has she spoke as she did
today. Nor can I guess why she would have speech with Reuben."
"I can guess shrewdly at that," said the young man. "It so befell
this morning that I found a party of roisterers at her door, who were
marking it with a red cross, as though it were a plague-stricken
house--as the Magistrates talk of marking them now if the distemper
spreads much further and wider. The bold lady had herself put these
fellows to the rout by pouring pitch upon them from a window above;
but I stopped to rebuke the foremost of them myself, and to erase
their handiwork from the door. I did not know that I was either seen
or known; but methinks my Lady Scrope has eyes in the back of her
head, as the saying goes."
"You may well say that!" cried Dorcas, with a laugh and a shrug.
"Never was there such a woman for knowing everything and everybody.
But she spoke not to me of any roisterers. Would I had been there
to see her pouring her filthy compound over them! She always has it
ready. How she must have rejoiced to find a use for it at last!"
"It is an evil and a scurvy jest at such a time to mock at the
peril which is at our very doors, and which naught but the mercy of
God can avert from us," said the master of the house, very gravely.
Then, looking round upon his assembled household, he added in the
same very serious way, "I have been this day into the heart of the
city. I have spoken with many of the authorities there. The Lord
Mayor and the Magistrates are in great anxiety, and I fear me there
can be no longer any doubt that the distemper is spreading
fearfully. It has not yet appeared within the city nor upon the
other side of the river; but in the western parishes it is
spreading every way, and they say that all who are able are fleeing
away from their houses. Perchance for those who can do so this may
be the safest thing to do. But soon they will not be permitted to
leave, unless they have a bill of health from the Lord Mayor, as in
the country beyond the honest folks are taking alarm, and are
crying out that we are like to spread the plague all over the
kingdom."
"I, too, have heard sad tales of the mortality," said Dinah,
raising her calm voice and speaking very seriously. "I met a good
physician, under whom I often laboured amongst the sick, and he
tells me that there be poor stricken wretches from whom all the
world flee in terror the moment it appears they have the distemper
upon them. Many have died already untended and uncared for, whilst
others have in the madness of the fever and pain burst out of the
rooms in which they have been shut up, and have run up and down the
streets, spreading terror in their path, till they have dropped
down dead or dying, to be carried to graveyard or pest house as the
case may be. But who can tell how many other victims such a
miserable creature may not have infected first?"
"Ay, that is the terror of it," said Harmer. "All are saying that
nurses must be found to care for the sick, and many are very
resolved that the houses where the distemper is found should be
straitly shut up and guarded by watchmen, that none go forth. It is
a hard thing for the whole to be thus shut in with the infected;
but as men truly say, how shall the whole city escape if something
be not done to restrain the people from passing to and fro, and
spreading the distemper everywhere?"
"I have thought," said Dinah, very quietly, "that it may be given
to me to offer myself as a nurse for these poor persons. I have
passed unscathed through many perils before now. Once I verily
believe I was with one who died even of this distemper, albeit the
physician called it the spotted fever, which frights men less than
the name of plague. There be many herbs and simples and decoctions
which men say are of great value in keeping the infection at bay.
And even were it not so, we must not be thinking only at such times
of saving our own lives. There be some that must be ready to risk
even life, if they may serve their brethren. The good physicians
are prepared to do this, to say nothing of the Magistrates and
those who have the management of this great city at such a time.
And it seems to me that women must always be ready to tend the sick
even in times of peril. I seem to hear a call that bids me offer
myself for this work; but none else shall suffer through me. If I
go, I return hither no more. I shall live amongst the sick until
this judgment be overpast, or until I myself be called hence, as
may well be."
All faces were grave and full of awe. Yet perhaps none who knew
Dinah were overmuch surprised at her words. Her life had been lived
amongst the sick for many years. She had never shrunk from danger,
or had spared herself when the need was pressing. Her sister
Rachel, although the tears stood in her eyes, said nothing to
dissuade her.
Nor indeed was there much time for discussion then, for the Master
Builder looked in at that moment with a face full of concern. He
brought the news that fresh revelations were being hourly made as
to the terrible rapidity with which the plague was spreading in the
parishes without the walls; and he added that even the gay and
giddy Court had been at last alarmed, and that the King had been
heard to say he should quit Whitehall and retire with his Court and
his minions to Oxford in the course of a week or a fortnight,
unless matters became speedily much better.
"Ay, that is ever the way," said Harmer, sternly. "The reckless
monarch and his licentious Court draw down upon the city the wrath
of God in judgment of their wickedness, and those who have provoked
the judgment flee from the peril, leaving the poor of the city to
perish like sheep."
"Well, well, well; fine folks like change, and it is easy for them
to go elsewhere. I would do the same, perchance, were I so placed,"
said the Master Builder; "but we men of business must stick to our
work as long as it sticks to us.
"What about your mistress, Lady Scrope, Dorcas? Has she said aught
of leaving London? She is one who could easily fly. Not but what I
trust the distemper will be kept well out of the city by the care
taken."
"She has spoken no word of any such thing," answered Dorcas. "She
reads and hears all that is spoken about the plague, and makes my
blood run cold by the stories she tells of it in other lands, and
during other outbreaks which she can remember. Methinks sometimes
the very hair on my head is standing up in the affright her words
bring me. But she only laughs and mocks, and calls me a little
poltroon. I trow that she would never fly; it would not be like
her."
"Men and women do many things unlike themselves in stress of
particular and deadly peril," said the Master Builder. "Lady Scrope
would do well to consider leaving whilst the city has so good a
bill of health; it may be less easy by-and-by, should the distemper
spread."
"Thou canst speak to her of this thing, Reuben, when thou dost see
her on the morrow," observed his father. "Perchance she has not
considered the peril of being detained if she puts off flight too
long."
Reuben said he would name the matter to the lady; and when Dorcas
set forth upon the morrow for her daily walk, her brother
accompanied her, and told her in confidence what he had not told to
his family--how Frederick Mason had been served by the irate old
lady, and what a sorry spectacle he had presented afterwards.
Dorcas laughed heartily at the story. She had no love for
Frederick, and she told her brother that she suspected he had been
the half-tipsy gallant who had striven to kiss her in the streets,
and had partially succeeded. This put Reuben into a great wrath,
and he promised whenever he could do so to come and escort his
sister home from the house in Allhallowes. True, the distance was
but very short, yet the lane to the bridge head was lonely and
narrow, and Frederick was known for a most ill-conditioned young
man.
Lady Scrope received Reuben in a demi-toilet of a peculiar kind,
and a very strange and wizened object did she appear. She thanked
him for the rebuke she had heard him administer to the roisterer,
enjoyed a hearty laugh over his wretched appearance, and then
proceeded to indulge her insatiable taste for gossip by demanding
of him all the city news, and what all the world there was talking
about.
"Since this plague bogey has got into men's minds I see nobody and
hear nothing," she said. "All the fools be flying the place like so
many silly sheep; or, if they come to sit awhile, their talk is all
of pills and decoctions, refuses and ointments. Bah! they will buy
the drugs of every foolish quack who goes about the streets selling
plague cures, and then fly off the next day, thinking that they
will be the next victim. Bah! the folly of the men! How glad I am
that I am a woman."
"Still, madam," said Reuben, taking his cue, "there be many noble
ladies who think it well to remove themselves for a time from this
infected city. Not that for the time being the city itself is
infected, and we hope to keep it free--"
"Then men are worse fools than I take them for," was the sharp
retort. "Keep the plague out of the city! Bah! what nonsense will
they talk next! Is it not written in the very heavens that the city
is to be destroyed? Heed not their idle prognostications. I tell
you, young man, that the plague is already amongst us, even though
men know it not. In a few more weeks half the houses in the very
city itself will be shut up, and grass will be growing in the
streets. We may be thankful if there are enough living to bury the
dead. Keep it out of the city, forsooth! Let them do it if they
can; I know better!"
Dorcas paled and shrank, fully convinced that her redoubtable
mistress possessed a familiar spirit who revealed to her the things
that were coming; but Reuben fancied that the old lady was but
guessing, and he saw no reason to be afraid at her words. Saying
such things would not bring them to pass.
"Then, madam," he answered, "if such be the case, would it not be
well to consider whether you do not remove yourself ere these
things comne to pass? Pardon me if I seem to take it upon mnyself
to advise you, but I was charged by my father, who is like to be
appointed for a time one of the examiners of health whom the Mayor
and Magistrates think it well to institute at this time, that soon
it may not be so easy to get away from the city as it is now;
wherefore it behoves the sound whilst they are yet sound to bethink
them whether or not they will take themselves away elsewhere. Also
my mother wished me to ask the question of your ladyship, forasmuch
as she would like to know whether my sister in such case would be
required to accompany you."
Lady Scrope nodded her head several times, an odd light of mockery
gleaming in her keen black eyes.
"Tell your worthy father, good youth, that I thank him for his good
counsel; but also tell him that nothing will drive me from this
place--not even though I be the only one left alive in the city.
Here I was born, and here I mean to die; and whether death comes by
the plague or by some other messenger what care I? I tell thee,
lad, I am far safer here than gadding about the country. Here I can
shut myself up at pleasure from all the world. Abroad, I am at the
muercy of any plague-stricken vagabond who comes to ask an alms.
Let all sensible folks stay at home and shut themselves up, and let
the fools go gadding here, there, and all over. As for Dorcas, let
her come and go as long as she safely may; but if your good mother
would keep her at home, then let her abide there, and return to me
when the peril is overpast. I like the wench, and if she likes to
abide altogether with me she may do so. Let her mother choose."
Dorcas, however, had no wish to live in that lonely house
altogether, and for the present there was no reason why she should
not go backwards and forwards to her father's abode. Her parents
were grateful to Lady Scrope for her offer, but for the present
there was no reason for making any change.
The weather during these bright days of May had been cool and
fresh, and in spite of all evil auguries, sanguine persons had
tried hard to believe and to make others believe that the peril of
a visitation of the plague had been somewhat overrated. Yet the
choked thoroughfares leading out of London gave the lie to these
suppositions, and for many weeks the bridge was a sight in itself,
crowded with carriages and waggons all filled with the richer folks
and their goods, hastening to the pleasant regions of Surrey to
forget their fears and escape the pestilential atmosphere of the
city.
Then towards the end of the month a great heat set in, and at once,
as it were, the infection broke out in a hundred different and
unsuspected places, not only without but within the city walls. How
the distemper had so spread none then dared to guess. It seemed
everywhere at once, none knew why or how. Doubtless it was in
innumerable instances the tainted condition of the wells from which
the bulk of the people still drew their water; but men did not
think of these things long ago. They looked each other in the face
in fear and terror, none knowing but that his neighbour in the
street might be carrying about with him the seeds of the dread
distemper.
It now behoved all careful citizens to bethink them well what they
would do, with the fearful foe knocking as it were at their very
doors, and the matter was brought home right early to the Harmer
household, by a thing that befell them at the very outset of the
access of hot weather which told so fatally upon the city almost
imumediately afterwards.
Rachel Harmer was awakened from sleep one night by the sound of
something rattling upon the bed-chamber floor, as though it had
fallen from the open casement, and as she came to her waking
senses, she heard a voice without calling in urgent accents:
"Mother! mother! mother!"
Rising in some alarm, she went to the window which projected over
the lower stories of the house, as was usual at that time, and on
putting out her head she beheld a female figure standing in the
roadway below. When the moonlight fell upon the upturned face, she
saw it was that of her daughter Janet, who was in the service of
Lady Howe, and was her waiting maid, living in her house not far
from Whitehall, and earning good wages in that gay household.
In no little alarm at seeing her daughter out alone in the street
at night, she spoke her name and bid her wait at the door till she
could let her in, which she would do immediately; but Janet
instantly replied:
"Nay, mother, come not to the door; come to the little window at
the corner, where I can speak quietly till I have told you all.
Open not the door till you have heard my lamentable tale. I know
not even now that I am right to come hither at all."
In great fear and anxiety the mother cast a loose wrapper about
her, and descended quickly to the little storeroom close against
the shop, where there was a tiny window which opened direct upon
the street. At this window, but a few paces away, she found her
daughter awaiting her, and by the light of the rush candle that she
carried she saw that the girl's face was deadly white.
"Child, child, what ails thee? Come in and tell me all. Thou must
not stand out there. I will open the door and fetch thee in."
"No, mother, no--not till thou hast heard my tale," pleaded Janet;
"for the sake of the rest thou must be cautious. Mother, I have
been with one who died of the plague at noon today!"
"Mercy on us, child! How came that about?"
"It was my fellow servant and bed fellow," answered Janet. "We were
like sisters together, and if ever I ailed aught she tended me as
fondly as thou couldst thyself, mother. Today, when we rose, she
complained of headache and a feeling of illness; but we went down
and took our breakfast below with the rest. At least I took mine as
usual, though she did but toy with her food. Then all of a sudden
she put her hand to her side and turned ghastly white, and fell off
her chair. A scullery wench set up a cry, 'The plague! the plague!'
and forthwith they all fled this way and that--all save me, who
could not leave her thus. I made her swallow some hot cordial which
I think they call alexiteric water, and which is said to be very
beneficial in cases of the distemper; and she was able to crawl
upstairs after a while to her bed once more, where I put her. I
knew not for some hours what was passing in the house, though I
heard a great commotion there, and presently there stole in a
mincing physician who attends my lady, holding a handkerchief
steeped in vinegar to his nose, and smelling like an apothecary's
shop. He looked at poor Patience, who lay in a stupor, heeding
none, and he directed me to uncover her neck for him to see if she
had the tokens upon her. There had been none when I put her to bed
again, so that I had hoped it was but a colic or some such
affection; but, alas, when I looked at his direction, there were
the black swellings plainly to be seen. Forthwith he fled with
indecent haste, and only stopped to say he would send a nurse and
such remedies as should be needful."
"O my child! and thou wast with her all the time!--thou didst even
touch and handle her?"
"Mother, I could not leave her alone to die. And hardly had the
doctor gone than the fever came upon her, and it was all I could do
to keep her from rushing out of the room in her pain. But it lasted
only a brief while--for the poison must have gotten a sore hold on
her--and just after noon she fell back in mine arms and died.
"O mother, I see her face now--so livid and terrible to look upon!
O mother, mother, shall I too look like that when my turn comes to
die?"
"Hush, hush, my child! God is very merciful. It may be His good
pleasure to spare thee. Thy aunt doth go to and fro amongst the
smitten ones, and she is yet in her wonted health. But ere I call
thy father and ask counsel what we are to do, tell me the rest of
thy tale. Who came to thy relief? and how camest thou hither so
late?"
"I could not come before. I dared not go forth by day, lest I bore
about the seeds of the distemper. The nurse came at three o'clock,
and finding her patient already dead, wrapped her in a sheet, and
said that a coffin would be sent at dark, and that the bearers
would fetch her for burying when the cart came round, and that when
I heard the bell ring I must call to them from the window and let
them in. I asked why the porter should not do that, but she told me
that already every person in the house had fled. My lady had fallen
into an awful fright on hearing that one of her servants was
smitten, and before any knowledge could have been received of it by
the authorities, she had applied for and obtained a clean bill for
herself and her household, and every one of them had fled. The
house was empty, save for me and the poor dead girl; and I was
bidden to stay till her corpse was removed, for the nurse said she
was wanted in a dozen places at once, and that she had too much to
do with the sick to attend upon the dead."
"And thou wert willing to wait?"
"I could not leave her alone. Besides, I feared to walk the streets
till night. The nurse bid me not linger after the body was taken,
for no man knows when the houses will be shut up, so that none can
go forth who have been with an infected person. But it is not so
done yet, and I was free. But I dared not come home amongst you all
to bring, perhaps, death with me. I waited in the house till the
men and the cart came, and they brought a coffin and took poor
Patience away. They told me then that soon there would be no more
coffins, and that they would have to bury without them."
Janet paused and shuddered strongly.
"O mother, mother, mother!" she wailed, "what shall I do? What will
become of me? Shall I have to die in the streets, or to go to the
pest house? Oh, why do such terrible things befall us?"
The mother was weeping now, but the next moment she felt the touch
of her husband's hand upon her shoulder, and his voice said in its
quiet and authoritative way:
"What means all this coil and to do? Why does the child speak thus?
Tell me all; I must hear the tale.
"Janet, my girl, never ask the why and the wherefore of any of the
Lord's just judgments. It is for us to bow our heads in repentance
and submission, trusting that He will never try us above what we
are able to bear."
Comforted by the sound of her father's voice, Janet repeated her
tale to him in much the same words as before, the father listening
in thoughtful silence, without comment or question; till at the
conclusion of the tale he said to his wife:
"Go upstairs and bring down with thee my heavy riding cloak which
hangs in the press;" and when she had obeyed him, he added, "Now go
up to thy room, and shut thyself in till I call thee thence."
Implicit obedience to her husband was one of Rachel's
characteristics. Although she longed to know what was to be done,
she asked no questions, but retired upstairs and fell on her knees
in prayer. The master of the house went to a great cask of vinegar
which stood in the corner, and after pretty well saturating the
heavy cloak in that pungent liquid, he unbarred the door, and
beckoning to his daughter to approach, threw about her the heavy
mantle and bid mer follow him.
He led her through the house and up to a large spare guest chamber,
rather away from the other sleeping chambers of the house, and he
quickly brought to her there a bath and hot water, and certain
herbs specially prepared--wormwood, woodsorrel, angelica, and so
forth. He bid her wash herself all over in the herb bath, wrapping
all her clothing first in the cloak, which she was to put outside
the door. Then she was to go to bed, whilst all her clothing was
burnt by his own hands; and after that she must submit to remain
shut up in that room, seeing nobody but himself, until such time
should have gone by as should prove whether or not she had become
infected by the distemper.
Janet wept for joy at being thus received beneath her father's
roof, having heard so many fearsome tales of persons being turned
out of doors even by their nearest and dearest, were it but
suspected that they might carry about with them the seeds of the
dreaded distemper. But the worthy lace maker was a godly man, and
brave with the courage that comes of a lively faith. He had learned
all that could be told of the nature of the distemper; and after he
had burnt all his daughter's clothing with his own hands, and had
assured himself that she felt sound and well, and had also
fumigated his own house thoroughly, he felt that he had done all in
his power against the infection, and that the rest must be left in
the hands of Providence.
The mother hovered anxiously about, but came not near her husband
till permitted by him. She did not enter the room where her
daughter now lay comfortably in a soft bed, but she prepared some
good food for her, which was carried in by the father later on, and
promised her that by the morning she should have clothing to put
on, and that she should have every care and comfort during the days
of her captivity.
Janet thanked God from the very bottom of her heart that night for
having given to her such good and kindly parents, and earnestly
besought that she might be spared, not only for her own unworthy
sake, but for their sakes who had risked so much rather than that
she should be an outcast from home at such a time of peril and horror.