The clocks in the church steeples were chiming the hour of ten as
Dinah and her two companions started forth a second time upon their
errand of mercy and charity. It was an hour at which in ordinary
times all the city should be alive, the streets filled with
passersby, wagons lumbering along with heavy freights, fine folks
in their coaches or on horseback picking their way from place to
place, and shopmen or their apprentices crying their wares from
open doorways.
Now the streets were almost empty. The shops were almost all shut
up. Here and there an open bake house was to be seen, orders having
been issued that these places were to remain available for the
public, come what might; and women or trembling servant maids were
to be seen going to and fro with their loads of bread or dough for
baking.
But each person looked askance at the other. Neighbours were afraid
to pause to exchange greetings, and hurried away from all contact
with one another; and children breaking away from their mothers'
sides were speedily called back, and chidden for their temerity.
Some of the churches stood wide open, and persons were seen to
hurry in, lock themselves for a few minutes into separate pews, and
pour out their souls in supplication. Often the sound of
lamentation and weeping was heard to issue from these buildings. At
certain hours of the day such of the clergy as were not scared away
through fear of infection, or who were not otherwise occupied
amongst the sick, would come in and address the persons gathered
there, or read the daily office of prayer; but although at first
these services had been well attended--people flocking to the
churches as though to take sanctuary there--the widely-increased
mortality and the fearful spread of the distemper had caused a
panic throughout the city. The magistrates had issued warnings
against the assembling of persons together in the same building,
and the congregations were themselves so wasted and decimated by
death and disease that each week saw fewer and fewer able to
attend.
From every steeple in the city the bells tolled ceaselessly for the
dead. But it was already whispered that soon they would toll no
more, for the deaths were becoming past all count, and there might
likely enough be soon no one left to toll.
At one open place through which Dinah led her companions, a tall
man, strangely habited, and with a great mass of untrimmed hair and
beard, was addressing a wild harangue to a ring of breathless
listeners. In vivid and graphic words he was summing up the
wickedness and perversity of the city, and telling how that the
wrath of God had descended upon it, and that He would no longer
stay His hand. The day of mercy had gone by; the day of vengeance
had come--the day of reckoning and of punishment. The innocent must
now perish with the guilty, and he warned each one of his hearers
to prepare to meet his Judge.
The man was gazing up overhead with eyes that seemed ready to start
from their sockets. Every face in the crowd grew pale with horror.
The man seemed rooted to the spot with a ghastly terror. They
followed the direction of his gaze, but could see nothing save the
quivering sunshine above them.
Suddenly one in the crowd gave a shriek which those who heard it
never forgot, and fell to the ground like one dead.
With a wild, terrible laugh the preacher gathered up his long gown
and fled onwards, and the crowd scattered helter skelter, terrified
and desperate. None seemed to have a thought for the miserable man
smitten down before their very eyes. All took care to avoid
approaching him in their hasty flight. He lay with his face
upturned to the steely, pitiless summer sky. A woman coming
furtively along with a market basket upon her arm suddenly set up a
dolorous cry at sight of him, and setting down her basket ran
towards him, the tears streaming down her face.
"Why, it is none other than good John Harwood and his wife
Elizabeth!" cried Janet, making a forward step. "Oh, poor
creatures, poor creatures! Good aunt, prithee let us do what we can
for their relief. I knew not the man, his face was so changed, but
I know him now. They are very honest, good folks, and have worked
for us ere now. They live hard by, if so be they have not changed
their lodgings. Can we do nothing to help them?"
"We will do what we can," said Dinah. "Remember, my children, all
that I have bidden you do when approaching a stricken person. Be
not rash, neither be over-much affrighted. The Lord has preserved
me, and methinks He will preserve you, too."
With that she stepped forward and laid a hand upon the shoulder of
the poor woman, who was weeping copiously over her husband, and
calling him by every name she could think of, though he lay rigid
with half-open eyes and heeded her not.
"Good friend," said Dinah, in her quiet, commanding fashion, "it is
of no avail thus to weep and cry. We must get your goodman within
doors, and tend him there. See, there is a man with a handcart over
yonder. Go call him, and bid him come to our help. We must not let
your goodman lie out here in the streets in this hot sunshine."
"God bless you! God bless you!" cried the poor distracted woman,
unspeakably thankful for any help at a time when neighbours and
friends were wont alike to flee in terror from any stricken person.
"But alas and woe is me! Tell me, is this the plague?"
"I fear so," answered Dinah, who had bent over the smitten man;
"but go quickly and do as I have said. There be some amongst the
sick who recover. Lose not heart at the outset, but trust in God,
and do all that thou art bidden."
The woman ran quickly, and the man, who was indeed one of those
forlorn creatures who, for a livelihood, were even willing to scour
the streets and remove from thence those that were stricken down by
death as they went their way amongst their fellows, came with her
at her request, and lifting her husband into his cart, wheeled him
away towards a poor alley where lay her home.
As she turned into it she looked at the three women who followed,
and said:
"God have mercy upon us! I would not have you adventure yourselves
here. There be but three houses in all the street where the
distemper has not come, and of those, mine, which was one, must now
be shut up. Lord have mercy upon us indeed, else we be all dead
men!"
Dinah paused for a brief moment, and looked at her young charges.
"My children," she said, "needs must that I go where the need is so
great. But bethink you a moment if ye have strength and wish to
follow. I know not what sad and terrible sights we may have to
encounter. Think ye that ye can bear them? Have ye the strength to
go forward? If not, I would have you go back ere you have reached
the contamination."
Janet looked at Gertrude, and Gertrude looked at Janet; but though
there was great seriousness and awe in their faces, there was no
fear. Gertrude had gone through so much already within the walls of
her home that she had no fear greater than that of remaining in
helpless idleness there, alone with her own thoughts and memories.
As for Janet, she had much of the nature of her aunt--much of that
eager, intense sympathy and compassion for the sick and suffering
which has induced women in all ages to go forth in times of dire
need, and risk their lives for their stricken and afflicted
brethren.
So after one glance of mutual comprehension and sympathy, they both
answered in one breath:
"No, we will not turn back. We will go with you. Where the need is
sorest, there would we be, too."
"God bless you! God bless you for angels of mercy!" sobbed the poor
woman, who heard their words, and knowing both Dinah and Janet,
understood something of the situation, "for we be perishing like
sheep here in this place, shut away from all, and with never a
nurse to come nigh us. There be some rough fellows placed outside
the houses to see that none go in or out, and perchance they do
their best to find nurses; but at such a time as this it is small
wonder if ofttimes none are to be found. And some they have brought
are worse than none. The Lord protect us from the tender mercies of
such!"
The narrow court into which they now turned was cool in comparison
with the sunny street; but there was nothing refreshing in the
coolness, for fumes of every sort exhaled from the houses, and at
the far end there burned a fire of resinous pine logs, the smoke
from which, when it rolled down the court, was almost choking.
"They say it will check the spread of the distemper to the streets
beyond," said the woman, "but methinks it does as much harm as
good. If the Lord help us not, we be all dead men. The cart took
away a score or more of corpses last night. Pray Heaven it take not
away my poor husband tonight!"
The bearer of the handcart stopped at the door indicated by the
woman, and lifted the stricken man in his arms. It was one of the
very few doors all down that street which did not bear the ominous
red cross.
As Gertrude looked up and down the court her heart sank within her
for pity. The houses were closed. Watchers lounged at the doors,
drinking and smoking and jesting together, being by this time
recklessly and brutally hardened to their office. They knew not
from day to day when their own turn might come; but this knowledge
seemed to have an evil rather than a sobering effect upon them.
The better sort of watchmen were employed, as a rule, to keep the
better sort of houses. When these crowded courts and alleys were
attacked, the authorities had to send whom they could rather than
whom they would. Indefatigable and courageously as they worked, the
magnitude of the calamity was such that it taxed their resources to
the utmost; and had it not been for the bountiful supplies of money
sent in by charitable people, from the king downwards, for the
relief of the city in this time of dire need, thousands must have
perished from actual want, as well as those who fell victims to the
plague itself. Yet do as these brave and devoted men could, the
sufferings of the poor at this time were terrible.
As the sound of voices was heard in the street below, windows were
thrown up, and heads protruded with more or less of caution. From
one of the windows thus thrown up there issued a lamentable
wailing, and a woman with a white, wild face cried out in tones of
passionate entreaty:
"Help! help! help! good people. Ah, if that be a nurse, let her
come hither. There be five dying and two dead in the house, and
none but me to tend them, and methinks I am stricken to the death!"
"Janet," said Dinah, with a searching glance at her niece,
"methinks I must needs answer that cry. Go with this good woman,
and do what thou canst for her husband. Thou dost know what is best
to be done. I will come to thee anon; but thou wilt not fear to be
thus left? There is but one sick in this house. The need is sorer
elsewhere."
"Go, I will do my best. At least I can make a poultice, and see
that he is put to bed. I have medicaments in my bag. I would not
hinder thee. Sure there is work for all in this terrible place!"
"And this is only one of many scattered throughout the city!"
breathed Gertrude softly, her heart swelling within her.
Ever since she had halted before this house she had been aware of
the sound of plaintive weeping and wailing proceeding from the
adjoining tenement; and as Dinah moved away towards the door
opposite, she asked Elizabeth Harwood what the sound meant, and if
there was trouble in the next house.
"Trouble?--trouble and death everywhere!" was the answer. "The man
was taken away in the cart yesternight. God alone knows who is
alive in the house now. There be seven little children there with
their mother, but which of them be living and which dead by now no
one knows. I have heard nothing of the woman's voice these many
hours. Pray Heaven she be not dead--and the little helpless
children all alone with the dead corpse!"
"Oh, surely that could not be!" cried Gertrude. "Surely the
watchman would go to them! Oh, that must not be! I will go and
speak with him. He would not leave them to perish so!"
The woman shook her head, and hurried up the stairs whither her
husband had been carried. Her heart was too full of her own anxious
misery to have room for more than a passing sympathy for the needs
and troubles of others.
But Gertrude could not rest. She neither followed Janet into this
house nor her aunt across the street. She went to the door of the
next house, upon which the red cross had been painted; and seeing
her so stand before it, a man detached himself from a group hard by
and asked her business, since the house was closed.
"I am a nurse," answered Gertrude, boldly. "I have come to nurse
the sick. Let me into this house, I pray, for I hear the need is
very sore."
"Sore enough, mistress," answered the man, fumbling with his key,
for of course there was admittance to plague nurses and doctors
into infected houses; "but if you take my advice, you'll not
venture within the door. The dead cart has had four from it these
last two days. Like enough by this time they are all dead. They
have asked for nothing these past ten hours--not since the cart
came last night."
With a shudder of pity and horror, but without any personal
shrinking, Gertrude signed to the man to open the door, which he
proceeded to do in a leisurely manner. Then she stepped across the
threshold, the door was closed behind her, and she heard the key
turn in the lock.
Truly her work had now begun. She was incarcerated in a
plague-stricken house, and this time by her own will.
For the first few seconds she stood still in the dark entry, unable
to see her way before her; but soon her eyes grew used to the dim
light, and she saw that there was a door on one side of the passage
and a steep flight of stairs leading upwards, and it was from some
upper portion of the house from which the sound of crying
proceeded.
Just glancing into the lower room, which she found quite empty, and
which was unexpectedly clean, she mounted the rickety staircase,
the wailing sound growing more distinct every step she took. The
house was a very tiny one even for these small tenements, and there
were only two little rooms upon the upper floor. It was from one of
these that the crying was proceeding, but Gertrude could not be
sure which.
With a beating heart she opened the first door, and saw a sight
which went to her heart. Upon a narrow bed lay two little forms
wrapped in the same sheet, rigidly still, waiting their last
transit to the common grave. Except for the two dead children the
room was empty, and Gertrude, softly closing the door, and
breathing a silent prayer, she scarce knew whether for herself, for
the living, or for the dead, she opened the other, and came upon a
scene, the pathos and inexpressible sadness of which made a lasting
impression upon her, which even after events did not efface from
her memory.
There was a bed in this room too, and upon it lay the emaciated
form of a woman; asleep, as the girl first thought--dead, as she
afterwards quickly discovered. By her side there nestled a little
child, hardly more than an infant, wailing pitifully with that
plaintive, persistent cry which had attracted her attention at the
outset. Three children, varying in age from four to eight, sat
huddled on the floor in a corner, their tear-stained faces all
turned in wondering expectancy upon the newcomer. Stretched upon
the floor beside the bed was another child, so still that Gertrude
felt from the first that it, too, was dead, and when she lifted up
the little form, she saw the dreaded death tokens upon the waxen
skin.
With a prayer in her heart for grace and strength and guidance,
Gertrude laid the dead child beside its dead mother--for she saw
that the woman was cold and stiff in death; and then she gathered
the living children round her, and taking the infant in her arms,
she led them all down into the lower room, and quickly kindled the
fire that was laid ready in the grate.
She found nothing of any sort in the house, and the children were
crying for food; but the watchman quickly provided what was
needful, being, perhaps, a little ashamed of the condition in which
this household had been found.
Gertrude tended and fed and comforted the little ones, her heart
overflowing with sympathy. They clung about her and fondled her as
children will do those who have come to them in their hour of dire
necessity; and as their hunger became appeased, and they grew
confident of the kindness of their new friend, they told their
pathetic tale with the unconscious graphic force of childhood.
There had been a large household only a few days before. Father,
mother, two grownup sons, and one or two daughters--evidently by a
former marriage. The big brothers had gone away--probably to act as
bearers or watchmen--and the little ones knew nothing of them. One
of the sisters had been in service, but came home suddenly,
complaining of illness, sat down in a chair, and died almost before
they realized she was ill. They had kept that death a secret, had
obtained a certificate of some other ailment than the distemper,
and for a week all had gone on quietly, when suddenly three became
ill together.
Numbers of houses were shut up all round them. Theirs was reported
and closed. For a few days there had been hope. Then the father
sickened, and all the grownup persons had died almost together,
save the mother, and had been taken away the night before last.
What had happened since was dim and confused to the children. Their
mother had seemed like one stunned--had hardly noticed them, or
attended to their wants. Then two of them had been taken away into
the other room. They had heard their mother weeping aloud for a
while, but she would not let them in to her. By and by she had come
back to them, and had taken the baby in her arms and lain down upon
the bed. She had never moved after that--not even when little Harry
had called to her, and had lain crying and moaning on the floor.
The children thought she was asleep, and by and by Harry had gone
to sleep too. They had slept together on the floor, huddled
together in helpless misery and confusion of mind, until awakened
by the ceaseless wailing of the baby, which never roused their
mother. They were too much bewildered and weakened to make any
attempt to call for help, and were just waiting for what would
happen, when Gertrude had come amongst them like an angel of mercy.
Her tears fell fast as the story was told, but the children had
shed all theirs. They were comforted now, feeling as though
something good had happened, and they crept about her and clung
round her, begging her not to leave them.
Nor had she any wish to do so. It seemed to her as though this must
surely be her place for the present--amongst these helpless little
ones to whom Providence had sent her in the hour of their extreme
necessity.
The baby was sleeping in her arms. She looked down into its tiny
face, and wondered if it would be possible that its life could be
saved. For a whole night it had lain at its dead mother's side.
Could it have escaped the contagion? The three older children
appeared well, and even grew merry as the hours wore slowly away.
From time to time Gertrude looked out into the street, but there
was nothing to be seen save the men on guard; and only from time to
time was the silence broken by the cry of some delirious patient,
or a shriek for mercy from some half-demented woman driven frantic
by the terrors by which she was surrounded.
When afternoon came, she prepared more food for the children, and
partook of it with them, and wondered how and where she should
spend the night. The infant in her arms had grown strangely still
and quiet. It could not be roused, and breathed slowly and heavily.
"Harry looked just like that before he went to sleep," said the
eldest of the children, coming and peeping into the small waxen
face; and Gertrude gave a little involuntary shiver as she thought
of the four still forms lying sleeping upstairs, and wondered
whether this would make a fifth for the bearers to carry forth at
night.
Just as the dusk began to fall, there came the sound of a slight
parley without. Then the key turned in the house door, and the next
minute, to Gertrude's unspeakable relief, Dinah entered the room.
"My poor child, did you think I was never coming to you?"
"I did not know if you could," answered Gertrude. "Oh, tell me,
what must I do for all these little ones--and for the baby? Is he
dying too? It is so long since he has moved. I am afraid to look at
him lest I disturb him, but--but--"
Dinah bent over the little form, and lifted it gently from
Gertrude's arms.
"Poor little lamb, its troubles are all over," she said, after a
few moments. "The little ones often go like that--quite peacefully
and quietly. It has not suffered at all. It has been a gentle and
merciful release. You need not weep for it, my child."
"I think my tears are for the living rather than for the dead,"
answered Gertrude, with brimming eyes. "There are but three left
out of seven living yesterday, and what is to become of them?"
"We must report their case to the authorities. There are numbers of
poor children left thus orphaned, and it is hard to know what will
become of them. I will send at once to my brother-in-law, and
report the matter to him. He will know what it were best to do.
Meantime I shall remain here with you. Janet is busy next door. Her
patient is mending, and none besides in the house is sick. But oh,
the things I have seen and heard this day! There is not one living
now in the house to which I went first, and I have seen ten men and
women die since I saw you last.
"God alone knows how it is to end. It seems as though His hand were
outstretched, and as though the whole city were doomed!"