The Sign of the Red Cross Part 11

August had now come, a close, steaming, sultry August, and the plague was raging with a virulence that threatened to destroy the whole city. The Bills of Mortality week by week were appalling in magnitude; and yet those who knew best the condition of the lower courts and alleys were well aware that no possible record could be kept of those crowded localities, where whole households and families, even whole streets, were swept away in the course of a few days, and where there were sometimes none left to give warning and notice that there were dead to be borne away. So the registered deaths could only show a certain proportionate accuracy; for even the dead carts could keep no reckoning of the numbers they bore to the common grave, and the bearers themselves were too often stricken down in the performance of their ghastly duties, and shot by their comrades into the pit amongst those whom they had carried forth an hour before.

It was small wonder that the father had forbidden his younger sons to adventure themselves in the streets, where the pestilence seemed to hang in the very air. But the magnitude of the peril was beginning to rob even the most cautious persons of any confidence in their methods, for it seemed as if those working hardest amongst the sick and dead were quite as much preserved from peril as those who shunned their neighbours and never came abroad unless dire necessity compelled them. Indeed, despite many deaths of individuals, it began to be noted that the magistrates, aldermen, examiners of health, and nurses of the plague-stricken sickened and died less, in proportion, than almost any other cla.s.s. And of the physicians who remained at their posts to tend the sick, not many died, although some few here and there were stricken, and of these a certain proportion succ.u.mbed. But, as a whole, the workers who toiled with a good heart and gentle spirit amongst the sick (not just for daily bread or love of gain) fared better in the prevailing mortality than many others who held themselves aloof and lived in deadly fear of the pestilence. Wherefore it was not strange that at the last a sort of recklessness was bred amongst the citizens, and they kept themselves less close now when things were in so terrible a pa.s.s than they had done when the deaths were fewer and the conditions less fatal.

James Harmer had always been one of those who had put his confidence more in the providence of G.o.d than in any merely human precautions, and although he had always insisted upon prudence and care, he had steadily discouraged in his household any of that feeling of panic or of despair which he believed had been a strong factor in the spread of the distemper in its earlier stages. He also agreed in part with Lady Scrope's views regarding the water supply of the city--the old wells and the contaminated river water.

He let nothing be drunk in his house save what was supplied from the New River, and he impressed the same advice upon all his neighbours.

But to return to the boys and their weariness of the shut-up life of the house. The heat had grown intolerable, their pining after fresh air and liberty was become too strong for resistance.

Benjamin's eyes glowed at the very thought of escape from the region of streets and shut-up houses, and he drank in the sense of his brother's words eagerly.

"Hark ye," cried Joseph, in a rapid undertone, for they did not wish their mother to overhear them, she being by many degrees more fearful than their father, as was but natural, "why should we stay pent up here day after day and week after week, when even the girls be permitted abroad, and go into the very heart of the peril? We cannot be nurses to the sick, I know right well; neither can we help to search houses, or do such like things, as the elder ones.

But why do we tarry at home eating our hearts out, when the whole world is before us, and there be such wondrous things to see?

"Listen, Ben. I have a plan. Let us but once get free of this house, and be our own masters, and we will wander about London as we will, and see those things of which all men be speaking. I long to look into one of those yawning pits where they shoot the dead, and to see the gra.s.s growing in the city, and to hear some of those strange preachers who go about prophesying in the streets. I long for liberty and freedom. I would sooner die of the plague at last than fret my heart out shut up here. And we may be smitten as well at home as abroad, as even father says himself."

"Why, so we may; and methinks more are smitten so than those who go forth and breathe the air without!" cried Benjamin. "Our aunt lives amongst the dying, but she is not smitten; and the girls are ever in peril, but they live on, whilst others are taken. But will our father let us go forth? For I would not like to go unless he bid us."

"Nay, nor I," answered Joseph quickly, for reverence for their father was a strong sentiment in all James Harmer's sons and daughters; "we will strive to win his consent and blessing to our going forth; but we need not say all that we purpose doing when we are free. For, indeed, it may well be that we shall meet with many hindrances. They say that the roads leading away from the city are all closely watched, that no infected person is able to pa.s.s, and that many sound ones are turned back lest they bring the infection with them."

"Then how shall we get out?" asked Benjamin; but Joseph nodded his head wisely, and said he had a plan.

Before, however, he could further enlighten his brother they heard their father's footfall on the stair, and he came in looking weary and sad, as it was inevitable that he should, coming as he did into personal contact with so much misery, sickness, and death.

There was always refreshment ready for the workers at any hour of the day when they should come in to seek it. The boys rushed off to get him such things as their mother had ready, and whilst he partook of the wholesome and appetising meal prepared for him, Joseph burst out with his pent-up weariness of the shut-up life, his longing to be free of the house and the city, and his earnest desire that his father would permit him and Benjamin to go forth and s.h.i.+ft for themselves in the country until the terrible visitation was past.

The father listened with a grave face. He too began to have a great fear that the whole city was doomed to be swept away, and although upheld in his resolve to do his duty, so long as he was able, by his strong and fervent faith in the goodness and mercy of G.o.d, he was disposed to the opinion that all who remained would in turn be carried off victims to the fearful pestilence. Had he known from the beginning how terrible it would become in time, he sometimes said to himself, he would at least have made s.h.i.+ft to send his family away; but now that they were engrossed in works of piety and charity, he could not feel it right to bid them cease their labours of love, nor did he feel any temptation to quit his own post. Yet this made him the more ready to listen to the eager pet.i.tion of his boys, and to consider the project which had formed itself in the quick brain of Joseph.

"Father, I have thought of it so much these past days. We are sound in health. Thou couldst get us the papers without which men say none can pa.s.s the watch upon the roads. With them we can sally forth, with a small provision of money and food, and make our way either by boat to the farm at Greenwich where the other 'prentice boys live, and where there would be a welcome for us always, or else northward to our aunt beyond Islington, who will be hungering for news of us, and who will be rejoiced, I am very sure, to give us a welcome and to hear of the welfare of all, even though we come to her from the land of the shadow of death."

"Ay, verily do ye!" exclaimed the father, whose phrase Joseph had picked up and quoted. "Heaven send that my poor sister be yet numbered among the living. I know not whether the fell disease has wrought havoc beyond the limits of the city in that direction; but at the first it raged more fiercely north and west than with us, and G.o.d alone knows who are taken and who are left!"

"Then, father, may we go?" asked Benjamin, eagerly.

The father looked from one boy to the other with the glance of one who thinks he may be looking his last upon some loved face. Men had begun to grow used to the thought that when they left their homes in the morning they might return to them no more, or that they might return to find that one or more of their dear ones had been struck down and carried off in the course of a few hours. So terrible was the malignity of the disease, that often death supervened after a few hours, although others would linger--often in terrible suffering--for many days before death (or much more rarely, recovery) relieved them of their pain. This good man knew that if he let the lads go, he might never see them again. He or they might be victims before they met, and might see each other's face no more upon earth.

Yet he did not oppose the boys' plan. He knew how bad for them was this shut-up life, and how the very sense of fret and compulsory inactivity might predispose them to the contagion. If they could once get beyond the limits of the city, they might be far safer than they could be here. It would be a relief to have them gone--to think of them as living in safety in the fresh air of the country.

Moreover, it pleased him to think of sending a message of loving a.s.surance to his favourite sister, who dwelt in the open country beyond the hamlet of Islington. He felt a.s.sured that if she still lived she would have a warm welcome for his boys; and if the lads were well provided with money and wholesome food, they had wits enough to take care of themselves for a while, until they had found some asylum. In all the surrounding villages, as he well knew, were only too many empty houses and cottages. He knew that there was risk; but there was risk everywhere, and he felt sympathy with the lads for their eager desire to get free of their prison.

The mother felt more fear, but she never interfered with the decisions of her husband. Her tears fell as she packed up in very small compa.s.s a few articles of clothing and some provisions for the lads. Their father furnished them with money, the bulk of which was sewn up in their clothing, and with those health pa.s.ses which were so needful for those leaving the infected city.

The summer's night was really the best time in which to commence a journey. The heat of the streets by day was intolerable, the danger of encountering infected persons was greater, whilst although it was at night that the dead carts went about, these could be easily avoided, as the warning bell and mournful cry gave ample notice of their approach.

Last thing of all, after the boys had partaken of an ample supper, and had shed a few natural tears at the thought that it might be the last meal ever eaten beneath the roof of the old home, the father knelt down and commended them solemnly to the care of Him in whose hands alone lay the issues of life and death. Then he blessed the boys individually, charged them to take every reasonable care, and finally escorted them down to the door, which he carefully opened, and after ascertaining that the road was quite clear, he walked with them as far as the end of the bridge, and dismissed them on their way with another blessing.

Much sobered by the scenes through which they had pa.s.sed, yet not a little elated by the quick and successful issue to their demand, the boys looked each other in the face by the light of the great yellow moon, and nipped each other by the hand to make sure it was not all a dream.

How strange the sleeping city looked beneath that pale white light!

The boys had hardly ever been abroad after nightfall, and never during this sad strange time, when even by day all was so different from what they had been used to see. Now it did indeed look like a city of the dead, for not even an idle roisterer, or a drunkard stumbling homewards with uncertain gait, was to be seen. The watchmen, sleeping or trying to sleep within the porches or upon the doorsteps of certain houses, were the only living beings to be seen; and even they were few and far between in this locality, for almost every house was shut up and empty, the inhabitants of many having fled before the distemper became so bad, and others having all died off, leaving the houses utterly vacant.

"Let us go and see the house where Janet and Rebecca and Mistress Gertrude dwell," said Benjamin, as they watched their father's figure vanish in the distance, and felt themselves quite alone in the world; "perchance one of them may be waking, and may look forth from the window if we throw up a pebble. I would fain say a farewell word to them ere we go forth, for who knows whether we may see them again?"

"Ay, verily, we may be dead or else they," said Joseph, but in the tone of one who has grown used to the thought. "This way then; the house lies hard by, next door to my Lady Scrope's. Who would have thought that that cross old madwoman would have turned so kindly disposed towards the poor and sick as she hath done?"

There were many amongst her former friends and acquaintances who would have asked that question, had they been there to ask it. Lady Scrope had never been credited with charitable feelings; and yet it was her doing that a large house, her own property, next door to the small one she chose to inhabit, had been made over to the magistrates and authorities of the city at this time, for the housing of orphaned children whose parents had perished of the plague, and who were thrown upon the charity of strangers, or upon those entrusted with the care of the city at this crisis.

True, the house was standing empty and desolate. Its tenants had fled, taking their goods with them. All that was left of plenis.h.i.+ng belonged to Lady Scrope. Pallets were easily provided by the officers of health, and the place was speedily filled with little children, who were tenderly cared for by Gertrude, Janet, and Rebecca (who had joined her sister in this labour of love), all three having given themselves up to this work, and finding their hands too full to desire other occupation abroad.

Joseph and Benjamin had of course heard all about this, and knew exactly where to find the house. It was marked with the red cross, for, as was inevitable, many of the little inmates were carried off by the fell disease after admission, and the numbers were constantly thinning and being replaced by fresh ones. But hitherto the nurses themselves had been spared, and toiled on unremittingly at their self-chosen work.

There was no watchman at the door as the boys stole up, but they had scarcely been there ten seconds before a window was thrown up, and Janet's voice was heard exclaiming, "Andrew, art thou yet returned?"

"There is n.o.body here, sister," answered Joseph, "save Ben and me.

We are come to say farewell, for we are going forth this night from the city, to seek safety with our aunt in Islington. Can we do aught for you ere we go?"

"Alas, it is the dead cart of which we have need tonight," answered Janet. "We sent the watchman for physic, but it is needed no longer. The little ones are dead already--three of them, and only one ill this morning.

"Ah, brothers, glad am I to hear ye be going. G.o.d send you safety and health; and forget not to pray for us in the city when ye are far away. May He soon see fit to remove His chastening hand! It is hard to see the little ones suffer."

Janet's voice was quiet and calm, but Benjamin burst into tears at the sound of her words, and at the thought of the little dead children; but she leaned out and said kindly:

"Nay, nay, weep not, Ben, boy; let us think that they are taken in mercy from the evil to come. But linger not here, dear brothers.

Who knows that contagion may not dwell in the very air? Go forth with what speed you may.

"Ah, there is the bell! The cart is on its way! And here comes good Andrew back. Now he will do all that we need. Fare you well, brothers. Rebecca is sleeping tonight, and I would not wake her. I will give her your farewell love tomorrow."

She waved them away, and they withdrew; but a species of fascination kept them hanging round the spot. Moreover, they feared to meet the death cart in that narrow thoroughfare, and the porch of the church of Allhallowes the Less was in close proximity. The iron gate was open, and they were quickly able to hide themselves in the porch, from whence by peeping out they could see all that pa.s.sed.

Nearer and nearer came the sound of the rumbling wheels and the bell, and now the cry, "Bring forth your dead! bring forth your dead!" was clearly to be heard through the still air. Round the corner came the strange conveyance, drawn by two weary-looking horses; and at some signal from the inmates it drew up at the door of the house in front of which the boys had been standing a minute before.

The watchman brought out three little shrouded forms. They were laid upon the top of the awful pile, and the cart with its heavy load rumbled away, the bell no longer ringing, because there was no room for more upon that journey.

The boys stood with hands closely locked together, for although they had heard of these things before, they had never seen the sight. Their bedroom at home looked out upon the river, and the dead cart only went about at night. They trembled at the thought which came to them, that had they been numbered amongst the dead during this terrible visitation they too had been carried in that fas.h.i.+on to their last resting place.

"Come, Ben, let us be going," said Joseph, recovering himself first; "we need not linger in the city if we like it not. There may be strange things to see in all truth; but if we have no stomach for them, why let us make our way northward with all speed. We can leave all this behind us by daybreak an we will."

Taking hands, and feeling their courage return as they walked on, the brothers pa.s.sed along the silent streets. Sometimes a window would be opened from above, and a doleful voice would cry aloud in grief or anguish of mind, or some command would be shouted to the watchman beneath, or there would be a piercing cry for the dead cart as it rumbled by. The boys at last grew used to the sound of the bell and the wheels. Go where they would they could not avoid hearing one or another as the men went about their dismal errand.

It seemed less terrible after a time than it had done at first, and the bold spirit within them came back.

They wended their way northward, avoiding the narrower thoroughfares and keeping to the broader streets. Even these were often very narrow and ill smelling, so that the brothers had recourse to their vinegar bottle or swallowed a spoonful of Venice treacle before venturing down. Once they were forced to turn aside out of their way to avoid a heap of corpses that had been brought out from a narrow alley to wait for the cart. They had heard of such things before, but to see them was tenfold more terrible. Yet the spirit of adventure took possession of them as they pa.s.sed along, and they were less afraid even of the most terrible things than they had been of lesser ones at starting.

In pa.s.sing near to the little church of St. Margaret's, Lothbury, they were attracted by the sound of a voice crying out as if in excitement or fear. Being filled with curiosity in spite of their fears, they turned in the direction of the sound, and came upon a man clutching hard at the railings of the little churchyard, which like all others in that part was now filled to overflowing, and closed for burials, the dead being taken to the great pits dug in various places. Night though it was, there was a small crowd of persons gathered round the railings, all peering in with eager faces, whilst the voice of the man at the corner kept calling out:

"See! see! there she goes! She stands there by yon tall tombstone waving her arms over her head! Now she is wringing her hands, and weeping again.

"O my wife, my wife! do you not know me? I am here, Margaret, I am here! Weep not for the children who are dead; weep for unhappy me, who am left alive. Ay, it is for the living that men should weep and howl. The dead are at peace--their troubles are over; but our agony is yet to come.

"Margaret! Margaret! look at me! pity me!

"Ah, she will not hear! She turns away! See, she is gliding hither and thither seeking the graves of her children--