Part 13 (1/2)
Benjamin, who was rather delicate, had once pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ning with their accustomed cleanliness. There was no sign of neglect about the bright little house. The door stood open to the suns.h.i.+ne and the breeze; and at the sound of Benjamin's cry, a figure in a neat cotton gown and large ap.r.o.n appeared suddenly in the doorway, whilst a familiar voice exclaimed: ”Now G.o.d 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.
”G.o.d bless them! G.o.d 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 grat.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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 fas.h.i.+on that altogether won his heart. He made them all laugh at his method of showing grat.i.tude; 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 appet.i.te 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 dest.i.tute 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 peris.h.i.+ng; 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sure 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 seash.o.r.e. 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 compa.s.sion.
”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.”