Part 8 (1/2)
Just as the hour of midnight tolled, a sound of wheels was heard in the street below, a bell rang, and a lugubrious voice called out:
”Bring forth your dead! bring forth your dead!”
Directed by Reuben, who was on the alert, the bearers themselves entered the house and removed the body, wrapped in its linen swathings, but without a coffin, for by this time there was not such a thing to be had for love or money; nor could the carts have contained their loads had each corpse been coffined.
Gertrude alone, from an upper window, saw the body of her brother laid decently and reverently, under Reuben's direction, in the ominous-looking vehicle. For the mother of the dead youth was weeping her heart out in her husband's arms, and was not allowed to know at what hour nor in what manner her son's body was conveyed away.
”Will they fling him, with never a prayer, into some great pit such as I have heard spoken of?” asked Gertrude of Dinah, who stood beside her at the window, fearful lest she should be overwhelmed by the horror of it all.
She now drew her gently and tenderly back into the room, whilst the cart rumbled away upon its mournful errand, and smoothing the tresses of the girl, and drawing her to rest upon a couch hard by, she answered:
”Think not of that, dear child. For what does it matter what befalls the frail mortal body? With whatsoever burial we may be buried now, we shall rise again at the last day in glory and immortality! That is what we must think of in these sorrowful times. We must lift our hearts above the things of this world, and let our conversation and citizens.h.i.+p be in heaven.”
Then the tears gushed out from Gertrude's eyes, and she wept freely and fully the healing tears of youth.
CHAPTER VII. SISTERS OF MERCY.
”Father, dear father, prithee let me go!”
”What, my child? Have I not lost all but thee? Am I to send thee forth to thy death in this terrible city, stricken by the hand of G.o.d?”
Into Gertrude's face there crept a wonderful light and brightness.
Her eyes shone with the intensity of her feeling.
”Father,” she said, ”it is even because I hold the city to be smitten by G.o.d that I ask thy permission to go forth to minister to the sick and stricken ones. It seems to me as though in my heart a voice had spoken, saying, 'Go, and I will be with thee.' Father, listen, I pray thee. I heard that voice first, methought, upon the terrible night when they came and took Frederick away. When mother was next laid low, and as I watched beside her, and watched likewise how Dinah soothed and comforted and a.s.suaged her anguish of mind and body, the voice in my heart grew ever louder and louder. Whilst she lived, I knew my place was beside her; but it has pleased G.o.d to take her away. No tie binds me here now. If I stay, I shall but eat out my heart in fruitless longing, shut into these walls, and by no means permitted to sally forth. From a plague-stricken house I may only go to those smitten with the distemper. Father, let me go! prithee let me go! Dinah will take me; she will let me be with her. Ask her; she will tell thee.”
As the girl made her appeal to her father, the grave-faced, gentle woman who had remained with this household for nigh fourteen days stood quietly by. Dinah Morse had not quitted the house since the day upon which the hapless Frederick had been stricken down by the fell disease. For hardly had his remains been borne from the house before the mother fell violently ill of a wasting fever. At first there were no special indications of the plague in her malady; but after a week's time these suddenly developed themselves. From the first she had declared herself smitten by the distemper, and whether this conviction helped to develop the germs of the malady none could say. But be that as it might, the dreaded tokens appeared upon her body at last, and within three days from that time she lay dead.
All that the kindness of friends and neighbours could avail had been done. The Harmer family, in particular, had showed so much attention and sympathy in this trying time, that Gertrude was often overcome with shame as she recalled in what uncivil fas.h.i.+on they had been treated by her mother of late years, and how they were now returning good for evil, just at a time when so many men were finding themselves forsaken even by their nearest and dearest in the hour of their affliction.
The whole experience through which she had pa.s.sed had made a deep and lasting impression upon Gertrude. She had already watched two of the beings nearest and dearest to her fall victims to the dire disease which was raging in the city and laying low its thousands daily. It seemed to her that there was but one thing to be done now by those whose circ.u.mstances permitted it, and that was to go forth amid the sick and smitten ones, and do what lay within human power to mitigate their sufferings, and to afford them the solace and comfort of feeling that they were not altogether shut off from the love and sympathy of their fellow men.
”Father,” she urged, as she saw that her parent still hesitated, ”what would have become of us without Dinah? What should we have done had no help come to us in our hour of need? Think of the hundreds and thousands about us longing for some such tendance and love as she brought hither to us! What would have become of us had no kind neighbours befriended us? And are we not bidden to do unto others as we would have them do unto us in like case?”
”But the risk, my child, the risk!” he urged. ”Am I to lose my last and only stay and solace?”
”Mother died in this house, which is now doubly infected. I was with her and with Frederick both, and yet I am sound and whole, and thou also. Why should we so greatly fear, when no man can say who will be smitten and who will escape? Methinks, perchance, those who seek to do their duty to the living, as our good neighbours and the city aldermen and magistrates and doctors are doing, will be specially protected of G.o.d. Father, let me go! Truly I feel that I have been bidden. Here I should fret myself ill in fruitless longing. Let me go forth with Dinah. Let me obey the call which methinks G.o.d has sent me. Truly I think I shall be the safest so.
And who can say in these days, take what precaution he will, that he may not already have upon him the dreaded tokens? If we must die, let us at least die doing good to our fellow men. Did not our Lord say to those who visited the sick in their necessity, 'Ye have done it unto me'?”
”Child,” said the Master Builder, in a much-moved voice, ”it shall be as you desire. Go; and may the blessing of G.o.d go with you. I will offer myself for any post, as searcher or examiner, which may be open, if indeed I may go forth from this house ere the twenty-eight days be expired. If Dinah will take you, and if the Harmers will let you both sally forth from the house, I will not keep you back. It may be indeed that G.o.d has called you; and if so, may He keep and bless you both.”
Father and daughter embraced each other tenderly.
In those times the shadow of death was so very apparent that no one knew from day to day what might befall him ere the morrow. Strong men, leaving their homes apparently in their usual health, would sink down in the streets an hour afterwards, and perhaps die before the very eyes of the pa.s.sersby, none of whom would be found willing so much as to approach the sufferer with a kind word. Men would hasten by with vinegar-steeped cloths held closely over their faces; and later on some bearer with a cart or barrow would be sent to carry away the corpse and fling it into the nearest pit, of which there was now an ever-increasing number in the various parishes.
It will well be understood that in such days as these the need for nurses for the sick was terribly great. The majority of those so-called nurses were women of the lowest cla.s.s, whose motive was personal gain, not a loving desire to mitigate the sufferings of the stricken.
Whether all the dismal tales told by the miserable beings shut up in their houses, and left to the mercy of watchmen and nurses, were true may be well open to doubt. Many poor creatures became half demented by terror, and scarcely knew what they said. But enough was from time to time substantiated to prove how very terrible were the scenes which sometimes went on within these sealed abodes; and more than once some careless watchman or thieving and neglectful nurse had been whipped through the streets for misdemeanours brought home to them by the authorities.