A Tale of the Plague and the Fire, William Harrison Ainsworth [free e books to read online TXT] 📗

great distress. But I observed that my master, on his return, looked much surprised at seeing him, and treated him with a sort of cold respect."

"Was the gentleman young or old?" demanded Leonard, hastily.

"As far as I noticed," replied the porter, "for he kept his face covered with a handkerchief, I should say he was young--very young."

"You are sure it was not Lord Rochester?" pursued Leonard.

"How should I be sure of it," rejoined the porter, "since I have never seen his lordship that I am aware of? But I will tell you all that happened, and you can judge for yourselves. My master, as I have just said, on seeing the stranger, looked surprised and angry, and bowing gravely, conducted him to his study, taking care to close the door after him. I did not, of course, hear what passed, but the interview was brief enough, and the gentleman, issuing forth, said, as he quitted the room, 'You will not fail to come?' To which my master replied, 'Certainly not, on the terms I have mentioned.' With this, the gentleman hurried out of the house. Shortly afterwards the doctor came out, and said to me, 'I am going to attend a young woman who is sick of the plague, and may be absent for some time. If Mr. Thirlby or Leonard Holt should call, detain them till my return.'"

"My heart tells me that the young woman he is gone to visit is no other than Amabel," said Leonard Holt, sorrowfully.

"I suspect it is Nizza Macascree," cried Thirlby. "Which way did your master take?"

"I did not observe," replied the porter, "but he told me he should cross London Bridge."

"I will go into Southwark in quest of him," said Thirlby. "Every moment is of consequence now."

"You had better stay where you are," replied the old porter. "It is the surest way to meet with him."

Thirlby, however, was too full of anxiety to listen to reason, and his impatience producing a corresponding effect upon Leonard, though from a different motive, they set forth together. "If I fail to find him, you may expect me back ere long," were Thirlby's last words to the porter. Hurrying along Watling-street, and taking the first turning on the right, he descended to Thames-street, and made the best of his way towards the bridge. Leonard followed him closely, and they pursued their rapid course in silence. By the time they reached the north gate of the bridge, Leonard found his strength failing him, and halting at one of the openings between the tall houses overlooking the river, where there was a wooden bench for the accommodation of passengers, he sank upon it, and begged Thirlby to go on, saying he would return to Watling-street as soon as he recovered from his exhaustion. Thirlby did not attempt to dissuade him from his purpose, but instantly disappeared.

The night, it has before been remarked, was singularly beautiful. It was almost as light as day, for the full harvest moon (alas! there was no harvest for it to smile upon!) having just risen, revealed every object with perfect distinctness. The bench on which Leonard was seated lay on the right side of the bridge, and commanded a magnificent reach of the river, that flowed beneath like a sheet of molten silver. The apprentice gazed along its banks, and noticed the tall spectral-looking houses on the right, until his eye finally settled on the massive fabric of Saint Paul's, the roof and towers of which rose high above the lesser structures. His meditations were suddenly interrupted by the opening of a window in the house near him, while a loud splash in the water told that a body had been thrown into it. He turned away with a shudder, and at the same moment perceived a watchman, with a halberd upon his shoulder, advancing slowly towards him from the Southwark side of the bridge. Pausing as he drew near the apprentice, the watchman compassionately inquired whether he was sick, and being answered in the negative, was about to pass on, when Leonard, fancying he recognised his voice, stopped him.

"We have met somewhere before, friend," he said, "though where, or under what circumstances, I cannot at this moment call to mind."

"Not unlikely," returned the other, roughly, "but the chances are against our meeting again."

Leonard heaved a sigh at this remark. "I now recollect where I met you, friend," he remarked. "It was at Saint Paul's, when I was in search of my master's daughter, who had been carried off by the Earl of Rochester. But you were then in the garb of a smith."

"I recollect the circumstance, too, now you remind me of it," replied the other. "Your name is Leonard Holt as surely as mine is Robert Rainbird. I recollect, also, that you offended me about a dog belonging to the piper's pretty daughter, Nizza Macascree, which I was about to destroy in obedience to the Lord Mayor's commands. However, I bear no malice, and if I did, this is not a time to rip up old quarrels."

"You are right, friend," returned Leonard. "The few of us left ought to be in charity with each other."

"Truly, ought we," rejoined Rainbird. "For my own part, I have seen so much misery within the last few weeks, that my disposition is wholly changed. I was obliged to abandon my old occupation of a smith, because my master died of the plague, and there was no one else to employ me. I have therefore served as a watchman, and in twenty days have stood at the doors of more than twenty houses. It would freeze your blood were I to relate the scenes I have witnessed."

"It might have done formerly," replied Leonard; "but my feelings are as much changed as your own. I have had the plague twice myself."

"Then, indeed, you can speak," replied Rainbird. "Thank God, I have hitherto escaped it! Ah! these are terrible times--terrible times! The worst that ever London knew. Although I have been hitherto miraculously preserved myself, I am firmly persuaded no one will escape."

"I am almost inclined to agree with you," replied Leonard.

"For the last week the distemper has raged fearfully--fearfully, indeed," said Rainbird; "but yesterday and to-day have far exceeded all that have gone before. The distempered have died quicker than cattle of the murrain. I visited upwards of a hundred houses in the Borough this morning, and only found ten persons alive; and out of those ten, not one, I will venture to say, is alive now. It will, in truth, be a mercy if they are gone. There were distracted mothers raving over their children,--a young husband lamenting his wife,--two little children weeping over their dead parents, with none to attend them, none to feed them,--an old man mourning over his son cut off in his prime. In short, misery and distress in their worst form,--the streets ringing with shrieks and groans, and the numbers of dead so great that it was impossible to carry them off. You remember Solomon Eagle's prophecy?"

"Perfectly," replied Leonard; "and I lament to see its fulfilment."

"'The streets shall be covered with grass, and the living shall not be able to bury their dead,'--so it ran," said Rainbird. "And it has come to pass. Not a carriage of any description, save the dead-cart, is to be seen in the broadest streets of London, which are now as green as the fields without her walls, and as silent as the grave itself. Terrible times, as I said before--terrible times! The dead are rotting in heaps in the courts, in the alleys, in the very houses, and no one to remove them. What will be the end of it all? What will become of this great city?"

"It is not difficult to foresee what will become of it," replied Leonard, "unless it pleases the Lord to stay his vengeful arm. And something whispers in my ear that we are now at the worst. The scourge cannot exceed its present violence without working our ruin; and deeply as we have sinned, little as we repent, I cannot bring myself to believe that God will sweep his people entirely from the face of the earth."

"I dare not hope otherwise," rejoined Rainbird, "though I would fain do so. I discern no symptoms of abatement of the distemper, but, on the contrary, an evident increase of malignity, and such is the opinion of all I have spoken with on the subject. Chowles told me he buried two hundred more yesterday than he had ever done before, and yet he did not carry a third of the dead to the plague-pit. He is a strange fellow that Chowles. But for his passion for his horrible calling there is no necessity for him to follow it, for he is now one of the richest men in London."

"He must have amassed his riches by robbery, then," remarked Leonard.

"True," returned Rainbird. "He helps himself without scruple to the clothes, goods, and other property, of all who die of the pestilence; and after ransacking their houses, conveys his plunder in the dead-cart to his own dwelling."

"In Saint Paul's?" asked Leonard.

"No--a large house in Nicholas-lane, once belonging to a wealthy merchant, who perished, with his family, of the plague," replied Rainbird. "He has filled it from cellar to garret with the spoil he has obtained."

"And how has he preserved it?" inquired the apprentice.

"The plague has preserved it for him," replied Rainbird. "The few authorities who now act have, perhaps, no knowledge of his proceedings; or if they have, have not cared to interfere, awaiting a more favourable season, if it should ever arrive, to dispossess him of his hoard, and punish him for his delinquencies; while, in the mean time, they are glad, on any terms, to avail themselves of his services as a burier. Other people do not care to meddle with him, and the most daring robber would be afraid to touch infected money or clothes."

"If you are going towards Nicholas-lane," said Leonard, as if struck with a sudden idea, "and will point out to me the house in question, you will do me a favour."

Rainbird nodded assent, and they walked on together towards Fish-street-hill. Ascending it, and turning off on the right, they entered Great Eastcheap, but had not proceeded far when they were obliged to turn back, the street being literally choked up with a pile of carcasses deposited there by the burier's assistants. Shaping their course along Gracechurch-street, they turned off into Lombard-street, and as Leonard gazed at the goldsmiths' houses on either side, which were all shut up, with the fatal red cross on the doors, he could not help remarking to his companion, "The plague has not spared any of these on account of their riches."

"True," replied the other; "and of the thousands who used formerly to throng this street not one is left. Wo to London!--wo!--wo!"

Leonard echoed the sentiment, and fell into a melancholy train of reflection. It has been more than once remarked that the particular day now under consideration was the one in which the plague exercised its fiercest dominion over the city; and though at first its decline was as imperceptible as the gradual diminution of the day after the longest has passed, yet still the alteration began. On that day, as if death had known that his power was to be speedily arrested, he sharpened his fellest arrows, and discharged them with unerring aim. To pursue the course of the destroyer from house to house--to show with what unrelenting fury he assailed