The Sign of the Red Cross: A Tale of Old London

by Evelyn Everett-Green

  CHAPTER IX. JOSEPH'S PLAN.

  "Ben, boy, I am sick to death of sitting at home doing naught, andseeing naught of all the sights that be abroad, and of which menare for ever speaking. What boots it to be alive, if one is buriedor shut up as we are? Art thou afraid to come forth? or shall I goalone?"

  "Where wilt thou go, brother?" asked Ben, looking up from a bit ofwood carving upon which he was engrossed, with an eager light inhis eyes. Perhaps these two young lads had felt the calamity whichhad befallen the city more than any one else in the house; forwhilst the father, mother, sisters, and two elder sons were allhard at work doing all in their power for the relief of the sick,the younger lads were kept at home, to be as far as possible out ofharm's way, and they had felt the confinement and idleness as mostirksome. Their mother employed them about the house when she could,but it was not much she could find for them to do. To be sure therewas some amusement to be found in watching the life on the river;for though traffic was suspended, many whole families were livingon board vessels moored on the river, and hoped by this device tokeep the plague away from them. Yet the time hung very heavy ontheir hands, and the stories of the increasing ravages of theplague could not but depress them, seeming as they did to lengthenout indefinitely the time of their captivity.

  Three of the sisters were practically living away from the house(of which more anon), and the loneliness of the silent house wasbecoming unbearable. To lads used to an active life and plenty ofexercise, the distemper itself seemed a less evil than this closeconfinement between four walls. The bridge houses did not evenpossess yards or strips of garden, and without venturing out intothe streets--which had for some weeks been forbidden by theirfather--the boys could not stir beyond the walls of their home.

  August had now come, a close, steaming, sultry August, and theplague was raging with a virulence that threatened to destroy thewhole city. The Bills of Mortality week by week were appalling inmagnitude; and yet those who knew best the condition of the lowercourts and alleys were well aware that no possible record could bekept of those crowded localities, where whole households andfamilies, even whole streets, were swept away in the course of afew days, and where there were sometimes none left to give warningand notice that there were dead to be borne away. So the registereddeaths could only show a certain proportionate accuracy; for eventhe dead carts could keep no reckoning of the numbers they bore tothe common grave, and the bearers themselves were too oftenstricken down in the performance of their ghastly duties, and shotby their comrades into the pit amongst those whom they had carriedforth an hour before.

  It was small wonder that the father had forbidden his younger sonsto adventure themselves in the streets, where the pestilence seemedto hang in the very air. But the magnitude of the peril wasbeginning to rob even the most cautious persons of any confidencein their methods, for it seemed as if those working hardest amongstthe sick and dead were quite as much preserved from peril as thosewho shunned their neighbours and never came abroad unless direnecessity compelled them. Indeed, despite many deaths ofindividuals, it began to be noted that the magistrates, aldermen,examiners of health, and nurses of the plague-stricken sickened anddied less, in proportion, than almost any other class. And of thephysicians who remained at their posts to tend the sick, not manydied, although some few here and there were stricken, and of thesea certain proportion succumbed. But, as a whole, the workers whotoiled with a good heart and gentle spirit amongst the sick (notjust for daily bread or love of gain) fared better in theprevailing mortality than many others who held themselves aloof andlived in deadly fear of the pestilence. Wherefore it was notstrange that at the last a sort of recklessness was bred amongstthe citizens, and they kept themselves less close now when thingswere in so terrible a pass than they had done when the deaths werefewer and the conditions less fatal.

  James Harmer had always been one of those who had put hisconfidence more in the providence of God than in any merely humanprecautions, and although he had always insisted upon prudence andcare, he had steadily discouraged in his household any of thatfeeling of panic or of despair which he believed had been a strongfactor in the spread of the distemper in its earlier stages. Healso agreed in part with Lady Scrope's views regarding the watersupply of the city--the old wells and the contaminated river water.He let nothing be drunk in his house save what was supplied fromthe New River, and he impressed the same advice upon all hisneighbours.

  But to return to the boys and their weariness of the shut-up lifeof the house. The heat had grown intolerable, their pining afterfresh air and liberty was become too strong for resistance.Benjamin's eyes glowed at the very thought of escape from theregion of streets and shut-up houses, and he drank in the sense ofhis brother's words eagerly.

  "Hark ye," cried Joseph, in a rapid undertone, for they did notwish their mother to overhear them, she being by many degrees morefearful than their father, as was but natural, "why should we staypent up here day after day and week after week, when even the girlsbe permitted abroad, and go into the very heart of the peril? Wecannot be nurses to the sick, I know right well; neither can wehelp 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 wholeworld is before us, and there be such wondrous things to see?

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

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

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

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

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

  There was always refreshment ready for the workers at any hour ofthe day when they should come in to seek it. The boys rushed off toget him such things as their mother had ready, and whilst hepartook 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 earnestdesire that his father would permit him and Benjamin to go forthand shift for themselves in the country until the terriblevisitation was past.

  The father listened with a grave face. He too began to have a greatfear that the whole city was doomed to be swept away, and althoughupheld in his resolve to do his duty, so long as he was able, byhis strong and fervent faith in the goodness and mercy of God, hewas disposed to the opinion that all who remained would in turn becarried off victims to the fearful pestilence. Had he known fromthe beginning how terrible it would become in time, he sometimessaid to himself, he would at least have made shift to send hisfamily away; but now that they were engrossed in works of piety andcharity, he could not feel
it right to bid them cease their laboursof love, nor did he feel any temptation to quit his own post. Yetthis made him the more ready to listen to the eager petition of hisboys, and to consider the project which had formed itself in thequick brain of Joseph.

  "Father, I have thought of it so much these past days. We are soundin health. Thou couldst get us the papers without which men saynone can pass the watch upon the roads. With them we can sallyforth, with a small provision of money and food, and make our wayeither by boat to the farm at Greenwich where the other 'prenticeboys live, and where there would be a welcome for us always, orelse northward to our aunt beyond Islington, who will be hungeringfor news of us, and who will be rejoiced, I am very sure, to giveus a welcome and to hear of the welfare of all, even though we cometo her from the land of the shadow of death."

  "Ay, verily do ye!" exclaimed the father, whose phrase Joseph hadpicked up and quoted. "Heaven send that my poor sister be yetnumbered among the living. I know not whether the fell disease haswrought havoc beyond the limits of the city in that direction; butat the first it raged more fiercely north and west than with us,and God 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 onewho thinks he may be looking his last upon some loved face. Men hadbegun to grow used to the thought that when they left their homesin the morning they might return to them no more, or that theymight return to find that one or more of their dear ones had beenstruck down and carried off in the course of a few hours. Soterrible was the malignity of the disease, that often deathsupervened after a few hours, although others would linger--oftenin terrible suffering--for many days before death (or much morerarely, recovery) relieved them of their pain. This good man knewthat if he let the lads go, he might never see them again. He orthey might be victims before they met, and might see each other'sface no more upon earth.

  Yet he did not oppose the boys' plan. He knew how bad for them wasthis shut-up life, and how the very sense of fret and compulsoryinactivity might predispose them to the contagion. If they couldonce get beyond the limits of the city, they might be far saferthan they could be here. It would be a relief to have them gone--tothink of them as living in safety in the fresh air of the country.Moreover, it pleased him to think of sending a message of lovingassurance to his favourite sister, who dwelt in the open countrybeyond the hamlet of Islington. He felt assured that if she stilllived she would have a warm welcome for his boys; and if the ladswere well provided with money and wholesome food, they had witsenough to take care of themselves for a while, until they had foundsome asylum. In all the surrounding villages, as he well knew, wereonly too many empty houses and cottages. He knew that there wasrisk; but there was risk everywhere, and he felt sympathy with thelads for their eager desire to get free of their prison.

  The mother felt more fear, but she never interfered with thedecisions of her husband. Her tears fell as she packed up in verysmall compass a few articles of clothing and some provisions forthe lads. Their father furnished them with money, the bulk of whichwas sewn up in their clothing, and with those health passes whichwere so needful for those leaving the infected city.

  The summer's night was really the best time in which to commence ajourney. The heat of the streets by day was intolerable, the dangerof encountering infected persons was greater, whilst although itwas at night that the dead carts went about, these could be easilyavoided, as the warning bell and mournful cry gave ample notice oftheir 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 bethe last meal ever eaten beneath the roof of the old home, thefather knelt down and commended them solemnly to the care of Him inwhose hands alone lay the issues of life and death. Then he blessedthe boys individually, charged them to take every reasonable care,and finally escorted them down to the door, which he carefullyopened, and after ascertaining that the road was quite clear, hewalked with them as far as the end of the bridge, and dismissedthem on their way with another blessing.

  Much sobered by the scenes through which they had passed, yet not alittle elated by the quick and successful issue to their demand,the boys looked each other in the face by the light of the greatyellow moon, and nipped each other by the hand to make sure it wasnot all a dream.

  How strange the sleeping city looked beneath that pale white light!The boys had hardly ever been abroad after nightfall, and neverduring this sad strange time, when even by day all was so differentfrom what they had been used to see. Now it did indeed look like acity of the dead, for not even an idle roisterer, or a drunkardstumbling homewards with uncertain gait, was to be seen. Thewatchmen, sleeping or trying to sleep within the porches or uponthe doorsteps of certain houses, were the only living beings to beseen; and even they were few and far between in this locality, foralmost every house was shut up and empty, the inhabitants of manyhaving fled before the distemper became so bad, and others havingall died off, leaving the houses utterly vacant.

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

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

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

  True, the house was standing empty and desolate. Its tenants hadfled, taking their goods with them. All that was left of plenishingbelonged to Lady Scrope. Pallets were easily provided by theofficers of health, and the place was speedily filled with littlechildren, who were tenderly cared for by Gertrude, Janet, andRebecca (who had joined her sister in this labour of love), allthree having given themselves up to this work, and finding theirhands too full to desire other occupation abroad.

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

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

  "There is nobody here, sister," answered Joseph, "save Ben and me.We are come to say farewell, for we are going forth this night fromthe city, to seek safety with our aunt in Islington. Can we doaught for you ere we go?"

  "Alas, it is the dead cart of which we have need tonight," answeredJanet. "We sent the watchman for physic, but it is needed nolonger. The little ones are dead already--three of them, and onlyone ill this morning.

  "Ah, brothers, glad am I to hear ye be going. God send you safetyand health; and forget not to pray for us in the city when ye arefar away. May He soon see fit to remove His chastening hand! It ishard to see the little ones suffer."

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

  "Nay, nay, weep not, Ben, boy; let us think that they are taken inmercy from the evil to come. But linger not here, dear brothers.Who knows that contagion may not dwell in the very air? Go forthwith what speed you may.

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

  She waved them away, and they withdrew; but a species offascination kept them hanging round the spot. Moreover, they fearedto meet the death cart in that narrow thoroughfare, and the porchof the church of Allhallowes the Less was in close proximity. Theiron gate was open, and they were quickly able to hide themselvesin the porch, from whence by peeping out they could see all thatpassed.

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

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

  The boys stood with hands closely locked together, for althoughthey had heard of these things before, they had never seen thesight. Their bedroom at home looked out upon the river, and thedead cart only went about at night. They trembled at the thoughtwhich came to them, that had they been numbered amongst the deadduring this terrible visitation they too had been carried in thatfashion to their last resting place.

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

  Taking hands, and feeling their courage return as they walked on,the brothers passed along the silent streets. Sometimes a windowwould be opened from above, and a doleful voice would cry aloud ingrief or anguish of mind, or some command would be shouted to thewatchman beneath, or there would be a piercing cry for the deadcart as it rumbled by. The boys at last grew used to the sound ofthe bell and the wheels. Go where they would they could not avoidhearing one or another as the men went about their dismal errand.It seemed less terrible after a time than it had done at first, andthe bold spirit within them came back.

  They wended their way northward, avoiding the narrowerthoroughfares and keeping to the broader streets. Even these wereoften very narrow and ill smelling, so that the brothers hadrecourse to their vinegar bottle or swallowed a spoonful of Venicetreacle before venturing down. Once they were forced to turn asideout of their way to avoid a heap of corpses that had been broughtout from a narrow alley to wait for the cart. They had heard ofsuch things before, but to see them was tenfold more terrible. Yetthe spirit of adventure took possession of them as they passedalong, and they were less afraid even of the most terrible thingsthan they had been of lesser ones at starting.

  In passing near to the little church of St. Margaret's, Lothbury,they were attracted by the sound of a voice crying out as if inexcitement or fear. Being filled with curiosity in spite of theirfears, they turned in the direction of the sound, and came upon aman clutching hard at the railings of the little churchyard, whichlike all others in that part was now filled to overflowing, andclosed for burials, the dead being taken to the great pits dug invarious places. Night though it was, there was a small crowd ofpersons gathered round the railings, all peering in with eagerfaces, whilst the voice of the man at the corner kept calling out:

  "See! see! there she goes! She stands there by yon tall tombstonewaving her arms over her head! Now she is wringing her hands, andweeping again.

  "O my wife, my wife! do you not know me? I am here, Margaret, I amhere! 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 weepand howl. The dead are at peace--their troubles are over; but ouragony is yet to come.

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

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

  "Margaret! I could not help it. They would not let them lie besidethee! They took them away in the cart. I would have sprung in afterthem, but they held me back.

  "Ah, woe is me! woe is me! There is no place for me either amongthe living or the dead. All turn from me alike!"

  The tears rolled down the poor man's face, his voice was chokedwith sobs. He still continued to point and to cry out, and toaddress some imaginary being whom he declared was wandering amongstthe tombs. The boys pressed near to look, for some in the crowdsuddenly made exclamations as though they had caught a glimpse ofthe phantom; but look as they would the brothers saw nothing, andJoseph asked of an elderly man in the little crowd what it allmeant.

  "Methinks it means only that yon poor fellow has lost his reason,"he answered, shaking his head. "His wife was one of the first todie 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--sixin two weeks; and he has escaped out of his house, and wandersabout the streets, and comes here every night, saying that he seeshis dead wife, and that she is looking for her children, and cannotfind them because they are lying in the plague pit. He isdistraught, poor fellow; but many men gather night by night to hearhim.

  "For my part, I will come no more. Men are best at home in theirown houses; and you lads had best go home as fast as you can. It isno place and no hour for boys to be abroad."

  Joseph and Benjamin said a civil goodnight to the man, and takinghands bent their steps northward once again. They were now close tothe open Moor Fields; and although there was still another regionof houses to be passed upon the other side, they felt that whenonce they had passed the gate and the walls they should have leftthe worst of the peril behind them.