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

The young travellers were by this time both tired and sleepy, and finding near by a soft mossy bank, they lay down and were quickly asleep, whilst the dog curled himself up contentedly at their feet and slept also.

When the boys awoke the sun was up, although it was still early morning. They were bewildered for a few moments to know where they were, but memory quickly returned to them, and with it a sense of exhilaration at being no longer cooped up within the walls of a house, but out in the open country, with the world before them and the plague-stricken city behind. Even the presence of the dog, who proved to be a handsome and intelligent member of his race, black and tan in colour, with appealing eyes and a quick comprehension of what was spoken to him, added greatly to the pleasure of the lads. They gave their new companion the name of Fido, as a tribute to his affection for his dead master; but they were very well pleased that he did not carry his fidelity to the pass of remaining behind by the great pit when they started forth to pursue their way to their aunt's house beyond Islington.

Fido ran backwards and forwards for a while whining and looking pathetically sorrowful; but after the boys had coaxed and caressed him, and had explained many times over that his master could not possibly come back, he seemed to resign himself to the inevitable, and trotted at their heels with drooping tail, but with gratitude in his eyes whenever they paused to caress him or give him a kind word.

And they were glad enough of his company along the road, for from time to time they met groups of very rough-looking men prowling about as though in search of plunder. Some of these fellows eyed the wallets carried by the boys with covetous glances; but on such occasions Fido invariably placed himself in front of his young masters, and with flashing eyes and bristling back plainly intimated that he was there to protect them, whilst the gleaming rows of shining teeth which he displayed when he curled up his lips in a threatening snarl seemed to convince all parties that it was better not to provoke him to anger.

The more open parts of the region without the walls looked very strange to the boys as they journeyed onwards. Numbers of tents were to be seen dotted about Finsbury and Moor Fields and whole families were living there in the hope of escaping contagion. Country people from regions about came daily with their produce to supply the needs of these nomads; and it was curious to see the precautions taken on both sides to avoid personal contact. The villagers would deposit their goods upon large stones set up for the purpose; and after they had retired to a little distance, some persons from the tents or scattered houses would come and take the produce, depositing payment for it in a jar of vinegar set there to receive it. After it had thus lain a short time, the vendor would come and take it thence; but some were so cautious that they would not place it in purse or pocket till they had passed it through the fire of a little brazier which they had with them.

Nor was it to be wondered at that the country folks were thus cautious, for the contagion had spread throughout all the surrounding districts, and every village had its tale of woe to tell. At first the people had been kind and compassionate enough in welcoming and harbouring apparently sound persons fleeing from the city of destruction; but when again and again it happened that the wayfarer died that same night of the plague in the house which had received him, and infected many of those who had showed him kindness, so that sometimes a whole family was swept away in two or three days, it was no wonder that they were afraid of offering hospitality to wayfarers, and preferred that these persons should encamp at a distance from them, though they were willing to supply them with the necessaries of life at reasonable charges. It must be spoken to the credit of the country people at this time, that they did not raise the price of provisions, as might have been expected, seeing the risk they ran in taking them to the city. There was no scarcity and hardly any advance in price throughout the dismal time of visitation. This was doubtless due, in part, to the wise and able measures taken by the magistrates and city corporations; but it also redounds to the credit of the villagers, that they did not strive to enrich themselves through the misfortunes of their neighbours.

The boys were glad to purchase fruit and milk for a light breakfast; and their fresh open faces and tender years seemed to give them favour wherever they went. They were not shunned, as some travellers found themselves at this time, but were admitted to several farm houses on their way, and regaled plentifully, whilst they told their tale to a circle of breathless listeners.

Sometimes they were stopped upon the way by the men told off to watch the roads, and turn back any coming from the city who had not the proper pass of health. But the boys, being duly provided with this, were always suffered to proceed after some parley. They began, however, to understand how difficult a thing it had now become to escape from the infected city; and several times they saw travellers turned back because their passes were dated a few days back, and the guard declared it impossible to know what infection they had encountered since.

Very sad indeed were these poor creatures at being, as it were, sent back to their death. For it began to be rumoured all about the city that not a living creature would escape who remained there. It was said that God's judgments had gone forth, and that the whole place would be given over to destruction, even as Sodom, and that none who remained in it would be left alive.

This sort of talk made the brothers very anxious and sorrowful, but, as Joseph sought to remind his brother, the people who said these things had nothing better to go by than the prognostications of old women or quacks and astrologers, whom their father had taught them to disbelieve. He had always taught them that God alone knew the future and the thing that He would do, and that it was folly and presumption on the part of man to seek to penetrate His counsels, and venture to prophesy things which He had not revealed. So they plucked up heart, these two youthful wayfarers, firmly believing that God would take care of their father and all those who were working in the cause of mercy and charity in the great city, and that they could leave the issues of these things in His hands.

Since the day was very hot, and they were somewhat weary with their long walk and short night, they lay down at noontide in a little wood, not more than three miles from their aunt's house in Islington, and there they slept again, with Fido at their feet, until the sun was far in the west, and they were ready to finish their journey in the cool freshness of the evening.

They had come by no means the nearest way, but had fetched a wide circuit, so as to avoid, as far as possible, all regions of outlying houses. Time was no particular object to them, so that they reached their destination by nightfall; and now they were quite in the open country, and delighting in the pure air and the rural sights and sounds.

Yet even here all was not so happy and smiling as appeared from the face of nature. The corn was standing ripe for the sickle, but in too many districts there were not hands enough to reap it. One beautiful field of wheat which the brothers passed was shedding the golden grain from the ripened ears, and flocks of birds were gathering it up. When they passed the farmstead they saw the reason for this. Not a sign of life was there about the place. No cattle lowed, no dog barked; and an old crone who sat by the wayside with a bundle of ripe ears in her lap shook her head as she saw the wondering faces of the boys, and said:

"All dead and gone! all dead and gone! Alive one day-dead the next! The plague carried them off, every one of them, harvest hands and all. They say it was the men who came to cut the corn that brought it. But who can tell? They got yon field in" – pointing to one where the golden stubble was to be seen short and compact-"but half were dead ere ever it was down; and then the sickness fell upon the house, and of those who did not fly not one remains. Lord have mercy upon us! We be all dead men if He come not to our aid. Who knows whose turn may come next?"

Truly the shadow of death seemed everywhere. But the boys were so used to dismal tales of wholesale devastation that one more or less did not seem greatly to matter. Perhaps the contrast was the more sharp out here between the smiling landscape and the silent, shut-up house; but the chief fear which beset them was lest their kind aunt should have been taken by death, in which case they scarcely knew what would become of themselves.

They hastened their steps as they entered the familiar lane where nestled the thatched cottage in which their aunt had her abode. Mary Harmer was their father's youngest and favourite sister. Once she had made one of the home party on the bridge; but that was long before the boys could remember. That was in the lifetime of their grandparents, and before the old people resigned their business to the able hands of their son James, and came into the country to live.

The grandfather of Joseph and Benjamin had built this cottage, and he and his wife had lived in it from that time till the day of their death. Their daughter Mary remained still in the pretty, commodious place-if indeed she had not died during the time of the visitation. The children all loved their Aunt Mary, and esteemed a visit to her house as one of the greatest of privileges.

Benjamin, who was rather delicate, had once passed six months together here, and was called by Mary Harmer "her boy." He grew excited as he marked every familiar turn in the shady lane; and when at last the thatched roof of the rose-covered cottage came in sight, he uttered a shout of excitement and ran hastily forward.

The diamond lattice panes were shining with their accustomed cleanliness. There was no sign of neglect about the bright little house. The door stood open to the sunshine and the breeze; and at the sound of Benjamin's cry, a figure in a neat cotton gown and large apron appeared suddenly in the doorway, whilst a familiar voice exclaimed: "Now God be praised! it is my own boy. Two of them! Thank Heaven for so much as this!" and running down the garden path, Mary Harmer folded both the lads in her arms, tears coursing down her cheeks the while.

"God bless them! God bless them! How I have longed for news of you all! What news from home bring you, dear lads? I tremble almost to ask, but be it what it may, two of you are alive and well; and in times like these we must needs learn to say, 'Thy will be done!'"

"We are all alive, we are all well!" cried Joseph, hastening to relieve the worst of his aunt's fears. "Some say ours is almost the only house in London where there be not one dead. I scarce know if that be true. One or two of us have been sick, and some say that Janet and Dan have both had a touch of the distemper; but they soon were sound again. They all go about amongst the sick. Father has been one of the examiners all the time through; and though they only appoint them for a month, he will not give up his office. He says that so long as he and his family are preserved, so long will he strive to do his duty towards his fellow men. There be many like him-our good Lord Mayor for one; and my Lord Craven, who will not fly, as almost all the great ones have done, but stays to help to govern the city wisely, and to see that the alms are distributed aright to the poor at this season.

"But there was naught for us to do. We were too young to be bearers or searchers, and boys cannot tend the sick. So we grew weary past bearing of the shut-up house, and yestereve our father gave us leave to sally forth and seek news of thee, good aunt. And oh, we are right glad to find ourselves out of the city and safe with thee!"

Joseph spoke on, because Mary Harmer was weeping so plenteously with joy and gratitude that she had no words in which to answer him. She had not dared to hope that she should see again any of the dear faces of her kinsfolk. True, the distemper was yet raging fiercely, and none could say when the end would come; but it was much to know that they had lived in safety through these many weeks. It seemed to the pious woman as though God had given her a sort of pledge of His special mercy to her and hers, and that He would not now fail them.

She led the boys into her pretty, cheerful cottage, and set them down to the table, where she quickly had a plentiful meal set before them. Fido's pathetic story was told, and he was caressed and fed in a fashion that altogether won his heart. He made them all laugh at his method of showing gratitude; for he walked up to the fire before which a bit of meat was cooking, and plainly intimated his desire to be allowed to turn the spit if they would give him the needful convenience. This being done by the handy Benjamin, he set to his task with the greatest readiness, and the boys quite forgot all their sorrowful thoughts in the entertainment of watching Fido turn the spit.

Long did they sit at table, eating with the healthy appetite of growing lads, and answering their aunt's minute questions as to the welfare of every member of the household. Greatly was she interested in the home for desolate children provided by Lady Scrope, and ordered by her nieces and Gertrude. She told the boys that her house had often been used to shelter homeless and destitute persons, whom charity forbade her to send away. Just now she was alone; but even then she was not idle, for all round in the open fields and woods persons of all conditions were living encamped, and some of these had hardly the necessaries of life. Out of her own modest abundance, Mary Harmer supplied food and clothing to numbers of poor creatures, who might otherwise be in danger of perishing; and she bid the boys be ready to help her in her labour of love, because she had ofttimes more to do than one pair of hands could accomplish, and her little serving girl had run off in alarm the very first time she opened her door to a poor sick lady with an infant in her arms, who had escaped from the city only to die out in the country. It was not the plague that carried her off, but lung disease of long standing, and the infant did not survive its mother many days.

"But it frightened Sally away, poor child, just as if it had been the sickness; and I have since heard that she was taken with it a month ago in her own home, and that every one there died within three days. These be terrible times! But we know they are sent by God, and that He will help us through them; and surely, I think, it cannot be His will that we turn a deaf ear to the plaints of the afflicted, and think of naught but our own safety. I have work and enough to do, and will find you enough to fill your hands, boys. It was a happy thought indeed which sent you two hither to me."

CHAPTER XI. LOVE IN DIFFICULTIES

"It means that I am a ruined man, my poor girl!"

"Ruined! O father, how can that be? Methought you were a man of much substance. Mother always said so."

Gertrude looked anxiously into the careworn face of her father, which had greatly changed during the past weeks. He paid her occasional visits in her self-chosen home, being one of those who had ceased to fear contagion, and went about almost without precaution, from sheer indifference to the long-continued peril. He had been a changed man ever since the melancholy deaths of his son and his wife; but today a darker cloud than any she had seen there before rested upon his brow, and the daughter was anxious to learn the reason of it. This it was which had wrung from the Master Builder the foregoing confession.

"Your poor mother was partly right, and partly wrong. I might have been a rich man, I might be a rich man even now-terrible as is the state of trade in this stricken city-had it not been that she would have me adventure beyond my means in her haste to see me wealthy before my fellows. And the end of it is that I stand here today a ruined man!"

Gertrude held in her arms a little child, over whom she bent from time to time to assure herself that it slept. Her face had grown pale and thin during her long confinement between the walls of this house; yet it was a happier and more contented face than it had been wont to be in the days when she lived in luxurious idleness at her mother's side. She looked many years older than she had done then, but there was a beauty and sweet serenity about her appearance now which had not been visible in the days of old.

"What has happened during this sad time to ruin you, dear father?" asked Gertrude gently, guessing that it would ease his heart to talk of his troubles. "Is it the sudden stoppage of all trade?"

"That has been serious enough. It would have done much harm had that been the only thing, but there be many, many other causes. Thou art too young and unversed in the ways of business to understand all; but I was not content to grow rich in the course of business alone. I had ventures of all sorts afloat-on sea and on land; and through the death of patrons, through the sudden stoppage of all trade, numbers and numbers of these have come to no good. My money is lost; my loans cannot be recovered. Men are dead or fled to whom I looked for payment. Half-finished houses are thrown back on my hands, since half London is empty. And poor Frederick's debts are like the sands upon the seashore. I cannot meet them, but I cannot let others suffer for his imprudence and folly. The old house on the bridge will have to go. I must needs sell it so soon as a purchaser can be found. It may be I shall have to hand it over to one of Frederick's creditors bodily. I had thought to end my days there in peace, with my children's children round me. But the Almighty is dealing very bitterly with me. Wife and son are taken away, and now the old home must follow!"

Gertrude, who knew his great love for the house in which he had been born, well understood what a fearful wrench this would be, and her heart overflowed with compassion.

"O father! must it be so? Is there no way else? Methought you had stores of costly goods laid by in your warehouses. Surely the sale of those things would save you from this last step!"

The Master Builder smiled a little bitterly.

"Truly is it said that wealth takes to itself wings in days of adversity. I myself thought as you do, child-at least in part; and today I visited my warehouses, to look over my goods and see what there were to fetch when men will dare to buy things which have lain within the walls of this doomed city all these months. I had the keys of the place. I myself locked them up when the plague forced me to close my warehouse and dismiss my men. I saw all made sure, as I thought, with my own eyes. But what think you I found there today?"

"O father! what?" asked Gertrude, and yet she divined the answer all too well; for she had heard stories of robbery and daring wickedness even during this season of judgment and punishment which prepared her for the worst.

"That the whole place had been plundered; that there was nothing left of any price whatever. Thieves have broken in during this time of panic, and have despoiled me of the value of thousands of pounds. Whilst my mind has been full of other matters, my worldly wealth has been swept away. I stand here before you a ruined man. And like enough the very miscreants who have used this time of public calamity for plunder and lawlessness may be lying by this time in the common grave. But that will not give my property back to me."

"Alas, father, these are indeed evil days! But has no watch been kept upon the streets that such acts can be done by the evil disposed? Is all property in the city at the mercy of the violent and wicked?"

"Only too much has vanished that same way, as I have heard from many. Some owners are themselves gone where they will need their valuables no more, and others were careful to remove all they had to their own houses, or they themselves lived over their goods and could guard them by their presence. That is where my error lay. I gave your mother her will in this. She liked not the shop beneath, and I stored my goods elsewhere. Poor woman, she is dead and gone; we will speak no hard things of her weaknesses and follies. But had she lived to see this day, she had grievously lamented her resolve to have naught about her to remind her of buying and selling."

"Ah, poor mother! I often think it was the happiest thing for her to be taken ere these fearful things came to pass. The terror would well nigh have driven her distracted. Methinks she would have died of sheer fright. But, father, is all lost past recovery? Can none of the watch or of the constables tell you aught, or help you to recover aught?"

"Ah, child, in these days of death, who is to know so much as where to carry one's questions? Watchmen and constables have died and changed a score of times in the past two months. The magistrates do their best to keep order in the city, but who can fight against the odds of such a time as this? The very men employed as watchmen may be the thieves themselves. They have to take the services of almost any who offer. It is no time to pick and choose. I carried my story to the Lord Mayor himself, and he gave me sympathy and pity; but to look for the robbers is a hopeless task. It is most like that the plague pits have received them ere now. The mortality in the lower parts of the city is more fearful than it has ever been, and it seems as though the summer heats would never end. Belike I shall be taken next, and then it will matter little that my fortune has taken unto itself wings."

Gertrude came and bent over him with a soft caress.

"Say not so, dear father. God has preserved us all this while. Let us not distrust His love and goodness now."

"It might be the greater mercy," answered the Master Builder in a depressed voice. "I am too old to start life again with nothing but my broken credit for capital. As for you, child, your future is assured. I could leave you happy in that thought. You would want for nothing."

Gertrude raised her eyes wonderingly to her father's face. She had laid the sleeping child in its cot, and had taken a place at her father's feet.

"What mean you, father?" she asked. "I have only you in the wide world now. If you were to die, I should be both orphaned and destitute. What mean you by speaking of my future thus? Whom have I in the wide world besides yourself?"

The father passed his hand over her curly hair, and answered with a sigh and a smile:

"Surely, child, thou dost know by this time that the heart of Reuben Harmer is all thine own. He worships the very ground on which thou dost tread. His father and I have spoken of it. Fortune has dealt more kindly with our neighbours than with me. Good James Harmer has laid by money, while I have adventured it rashly in the hope of large returns. This calamity has but checked his work for these months; when the scourge is past, he will reopen business once more, and will find himself but little the poorer. He is a wiser man than I have been; and his wife and sons have all been helpful to him. The love of Reuben Harmer is my assurance for thy future welfare. Thou wilt never want so long as they have a roof over their heads.

"Nay, now what ails thee, child? Why dost thou spring up and look at me like that?"

For Gertrude's usually tranquil face was ablaze now with all manner of conflicting emotions. She seemed for a moment almost too agitated to speak, and when she could command herself there were traces of great emotion in her voice.

"Father, father!" she cried, "how can you thus shame me? You must know with what unmerited scorn and contumely Reuben was treated by poor mother when it was we who were rich and they who were (in her belief, at least) poor. She would scarce let him cross the threshold of our house. I have tingled with shame at the way in which she spoke of and to him. Frederick openly insulted him at pleasure. Every slight was heaped upon him; and he was once told to his very face that he might look elsewhere for a wife, for that my fortune was to win me the hand of some needy Court gallant. Yes, father, I heard with my own ears those very words spoken-save that the term 'needy' was added in mine own heart. Oh, I could have shrunk into the earth with shame. And after all this, after all these insults and aspersions heaped upon him in the day of our prosperity-am I to be made over to him penniless and needy, without a shilling of dowry? Am I to be thrown upon his generosity in my hour of poverty, when I was denied to him in my day of supposed wealth?