Part 12 (1/2)
”Margaret! I could not help it. They would not let them lie beside thee! They took them away in the cart. I would have sprung in after them, but they held me back.
”Ah, woe is me! woe is me! There is no place for me either among the living or the dead. All turn from me alike!”
The tears rolled down the poor man's face, his voice was choked with sobs. He still continued to point and to cry out, and to address some imaginary being whom he declared was wandering amongst the tombs. The boys pressed near to look, for some in the crowd suddenly made exclamations as though they had caught a glimpse of the phantom; but look as they would the brothers saw nothing, and Joseph asked of an elderly man in the little crowd what it all meant.
”Methinks it means only that yon poor fellow has lost his reason,”
he answered, shaking his head. ”His wife was one of the first to die when the distemper broke out; and men called it only a fever, though some said she had the tokens on her. She was buried here.
And it is but a week since the last of his children was taken--six in two weeks; and he has escaped out of his house, and wanders about the streets, and comes here every night, saying that he sees his dead wife, and that she is looking for her children, and cannot find them because they are lying in the plague pit. He is distraught, poor fellow; but many men gather night by night to hear him.
”For my part, I will come no more. Men are best at home in their own houses; and you lads had best go home as fast as you can. It is no place and no hour for boys to be abroad.”
Joseph and Benjamin said a civil goodnight to the man, and taking hands bent their steps northward once again. They were now close to the open Moor Fields; and although there was still another region of houses to be pa.s.sed upon the other side, they felt that when once they had pa.s.sed the gate and the walls they should have left the worst of the peril behind them.
CHAPTER X. WITHOUT THE WALLS.
Only one trifling incident befell the boys before they found themselves without the city gate. They were proceeding down Coleman Street towards Moor Gate, where they knew they should have to show their pa.s.s, and perhaps have some slight trouble in getting through, and were rehearsing such things as they had decided to tell the guard at the gate, when the sound of a dismal howling smote upon their ears, and they paused to look about them, for the street was very still, and almost every house seemed deserted and empty.
The sound came again, and Joseph remarked:
”'Tis some poor dog who perchance has lost master and home. There be only too many such in the city they say. They throw them by scores into the river to be rid of them; but I have heard father say that it is an ill thing to do, and likely to spread the contagion instead of checking it. Alive, the poor beasts do no ill; but their carca.s.ses poison both the water and the air. Beshrew me, but he makes a doleful wailing!”
Going on cautiously through the darkness, for the moon was veiled behind some clouds, the brothers presently saw, lying just outside a shut-up house, a long still form wrapped in a winding sheet, put out ready for one of the many carts that pa.s.sed up the street on the way to the great pits in Bunhill and Finsbury Fields. Whether the corpse was that of a man or a woman the boys could not tell.
They made a circuit round it to avoid pa.s.sing near.
But beside the still figure squatted a little dog of the turnspit variety, and he was awakening the echoes of the quiet street by his lugubrious howls.
Both the brothers were fond of animals, and particularly of dogs, and they paused after having pa.s.sed by, and tried to get the creature to come to them; but though he paused for a moment in his wailing, and even wagged his tail as though in grat.i.tude for the kind words spoken, he would not leave his post beside the corpse, and the boys had perforce to go on their way.
”The dumb brute could teach a lesson in charity to many a human being,” remarked Joseph, gravely; ”he will not leave his dead master, and they too often flee away even from the living. Poor creature, how mournful are his cries! I would that we could comfort him.”
At the gate they were stopped and questioned. They told a straightforward and truthful tale; their pa.s.s was examined and found correct; and their father's name being widely known and respected for his untiring labours in the city at this time, the boys were treated civilly enough and wished G.o.d speed and a safe return. They were the more quickly dismissed that the sound of wheels rumbling up to the gate made itself heard, and the guard darted hastily away into his shelter.
”These plague carts will be the death of us, pa.s.sing continually all the night through with their load,” he said. ”Best be gone before it comes through, lads. It carries death in its train.”
The boys were glad enough to make off, and found themselves for the time being free of houses in the pleasant open Moor Fields, which were familiar to them as the favourite gathering place of shopmen and apprentices on all high days and holidays. The moon shone down brightly again, although near her setting now; but before long the dawn would begin to lighten in the east, and the boys cared no whit for the semi-darkness of a summer's night.
Behind them still came the rumble of wheels, and they drew aside to let the cart pa.s.s with its dreadful cargo. Behind it ran a small black object, and Benjamin exclaimed:
”It is the little dog! O brother, let us follow and see what becomes of him!”
The strange curiosity to see the burying place, which tempted only too many to their death in those perilous days, was upon Joseph at that moment. He desired greatly to see one of those plague pits, and to watch the emptying of the cart at its mouth. Forgetting their father's warnings, the brothers ran quickly after the cart, which was easily kept in view, and soon saw it halt and turn round at a spot where they could discern the outline of a great mound of earth, and the black yawning mouth of what they knew must be the pit.
Half terrified, half fascinated, they gripped each other by the hand and crept step by step nearer. They took care to keep to the windward of the pit, and were getting very near to it when the air was rent by another of the doleful cries which they had heard before, but which sounded so strange and mournful here that they stopped short in terror at the noise. It seemed even to affect the nerves of the bearers, for one of them exclaimed:
”It is that cur again, who has left the marks of his teeth in my hand. If I could but get near him with my cudgel, he should never howl again.”
”I thought we had rid ourselves of the brute, but he must have followed us. A plague upon his doleful voice! They say that it bodes ill to hear a dog's howl at night. Perchance he will leap down into the pit after his master. We will take good care he comes not forth again if he does that.”
With these words the rough fellows turned to the cart, which was now at the edge of the pit, and finished the rude burial which was all that could in those days be given to the dead. Every now and then one of the men would aim a heavy stone at the poor dog, who sat on the edge of the pit howling dismally. The creature, however, was never hit, for he kept a respectful distance from his enemies.