“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?