Part 8 (2/2)

Will told us this news in the morning, and we were grieved at our foolishness, and wondered at hers; but we had little time for lamenting, as we were setting forth to visit a distant kinswoman of our father's, who, being rich and well reputed, we thought might be able to help us.

But here we fared no better,--not that the lady was dead; but she had gone out of town on the first alarm of the sickness, leaving her house locked up and empty, as the neighbours told us. So we went back to our inn yet more cast down; but there we stayed not long, for we were scarce got to our room when the landlord came to us, very angry, and said, had he known we had been visiting an infected house, we had never come into his; and he bade us to pack up and be gone within the hour, that he might have every place purified where we had come. Our horses, he said, might stand in his stable; but we saying we would remove them, he spoke more plainly, and said he should keep them as security for what we owed.

'I will take no money from you,' he said; 'you may have the Plague in your purses for all I know;' and he left us, saying if we went not quickly we should be put out by force.

This brutal usage dismayed me; but Althea said, 'Poor wretch! he is half crazed with fear; that makes mean men cruel; care not for him;' and when we were ready, giving our packages to Will, she led the way out with a determined aspect, having, as I soon found, embraced a strange--nay, a desperate resolution. For Will asking her, 'Which way will ye turn now, mistress? In _this_ street no inn will open to us, for sure;' she replied,--

'We will not seek any inn; we will betake ourselves to our cousin's empty house.'

'You mean not Mr. Dacre's?' I cried.

'But I do,' said she. 'We have a right to shelter there; and the door is open.'

I exclaimed against this as a tempting of Providence, persuading her first to try some other house of entertainment; and at last she agreed.

Now, whether our great distraction of mind gave us a haggard and sickly aspect, or whether 'twas merely the suspicion and hardness of heart bred in all people by terror, I cannot tell; but no one would take us in, some saying flatly they would receive no lodgers they did not know, and know to be sound. The day wearing fast away in these vain applications, Althea says to me,--

'You see we must try my plan at last. I bid you think scorn, my Lucy, of yielding to such base fears as make folk turn us from their doors.'

'It is not that I fear infection as they do,' said I; 'but I shrink from dwelling in a house not our own, and lying open to any thief.'

'Baby fears, Lucy,' she said, smiling. 'We will do our cousins a better turn than they merit; we will keep their doors fast against thieves, and their household stuff from moth and mould and rust. For the infection, we run as little risk in that house as out of it.' So she bore me down with her will, the more easily since we had no choice but either to lodge in that house or in the open street.

But Will said st.u.r.dily, 'Mistresses, you may do as you will; I will neither eat nor sleep in that evil house. There is a scent of death and sin breathing from it; I perceived it as we stood at the door.'

'And will you desert us then, Will?' said Althea. 'Have you come so far, to forsake us now?'

'Who spoke of forsaking?' growled Will. 'I can find some balk, some cobbler's stall, without the house, to sleep on, if you will lodge within. The watch-dog lies not in the house, I trow? But if you must lodge there, enter not openly, nor let it be known you are within; you may be suspected for thieves or worse.'

'Yours is no fool's advice,' said Althea shortly.

So we lingered out the time till nightfall in buying some needful things,--bread and meat and candles,--having to walk far before we found shops open; then, as night thickened, we stole into the desolate house, and groped our way to a room at the back, where we lit our candles and looked about us. 'Twas a richly furnished withdrawing-room, with windows open on a garden.

'There will I sleep,' said Will. 'I had rather have the free sky over me than this roof; so give me but a hunch of bread to sup on, and let me go.'

There was little use in crossing him, so we gave him some meat and bread; but we prayed his help first to make all the doors fast, which he willingly did; then he showed us how to secure the window after him, and so slipt out into the night.

Now we looked at one another, and felt desolate and dismayed for a moment. Then I said, 'Let us commend our cause to G.o.d, sister; He will hear us;' and we knelt down together and implored the Divine protection; after which we felt at peace, and so took courage to sup on the food we had brought. Then we made fast our door on the inside, and lay down to sleep on the floor, with our mantles for coverlets and our bundles for pillows. I never slept in such rude fas.h.i.+on, nor ever more sweetly and soundly.

Early in the morning there came a tapping at the window that wakened me; so I rose and drew back the curtain, and saw that Will was moving about in the garden. We let him in shortly, and gave him some food, which he carried with him out of doors; then, coming back, he excused his incivility of the night before. 'But I cannot eat nor sleep here,' said he. 'In all other matters I am your servant.'

He had lodged for the night in an empty dog-kennel, which he showed us, close against a side-door that led out to the street.

'There,' said he, 'I can do you better watchman's service than if I lay within; and by that door you may come and go unespied of any gossips.'

Althea smiled, and commended his thoughtfulness. Then she said,--

'You will come with us now, Will? We must examine this house;' so he stepped in, shuddering, and looking round almost with horror.

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