WHERE LAMENTATION PREVAILED.
Weep, heavens, and vanish into liquid tears!
Fall, stars that govern his nativity,
And summon all the shining lamps of heaven
To cast their bootless fires to the earth.
—II Tamburlaine, v, 3.
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad, revolting stars.
—First Part Henry VI, i, 1.
When Gyves, the constable, slunk away from the portico of the Windmill Tavern, where he had been exhausting his patience on protracted watch, his face was the composite picture of all the hopeless wretches whom he had arrested during his long term of office. He had waited for Tabbard, and—he had seen him. It was evident that no demand upon the latter could be responded to. What was he to do? To be without the warrant meant the loss of his office and perhaps heavy fine or severe punishment. It might be that the contents of Tabbard’s pockets had been removed before the body was taken from the tavern; but this was not likely. Every one feared contagion; and the dead, from plague, were not usually disturbed more than was necessary to move them to the death cart. A ray of hope scattered some of the gloom on his countenance, and the breaking light of the morning revealed it. He determined to follow the cart, which was already passing down the Old Jewry. He started upon this spur, and at the corner of the Poultry overtook the cart, which, turning west, entered Cheapside. Gyves kept at a distance of thirty feet from the object that he followed, either to avoid raising suspicions of evil on the part of the living occupants of the cart, or to avoid close proximity to the victims of the plague.
The morning light was now strong enough for Gyves to see that the cart was only half full of bodies. His apprehension, that frequent halts would ensue before they reached the potters’ field, soon proved to be in part well founded. The first one occurred near the mouth of a side street or lane. Gloomy looking buildings stood at the corners, and close behind each, facing on the lane, were rows of small, miserable cottages. Despite the ordinance prohibiting the building of houses of frail and perishable material, these structures had been raised with fronts of wood and roofs of reeds. They were all of one story and arose from the edge of the muddy walk—low walls of upright planks, broken by narrow windows and spaces between doorposts. The reeds of the roofs never flourished in a locality more suitable for their rank growth than the lane below. It was deep with mud and water. Lights shone from some of the windows, but so faintly that the still dull glimmer of the morning seemed to mock the poverty of their rays. On several of the doors red crosses were printed, and two watchmen were pacing to and fro before them, to see that these marked doors were kept closed except for the purpose of passing out the corpse of an inmate.
Sounds of lamentation came from the lane. These were somewhat smothered by the thin walls which only added to their mournfulness. The cart turned into the lane, and Gyves heard one of the watchmen say:
“Always late. Ten minutes more an’ it’ll be sun up, and we wouldn’t dare to pass another corpse to the cart. Why don’t you start earlier?”
“Always growling,” returned the driver. “How many are here?”
“Six,” answered the watchman.
“It’s growing worse.”
“Yes; only two yesterday morning.”
“Which dwellings this time?” asked the second man on the cart, who was known as a burier.
“There, there and there,” said the watchman, pointing with the head of his halberd.
“What! again?” exclaimed the driver, looking at the hovel nearest at hand.
“The last of the family,” added the watchman.
“Man or woman?”
“Neither; a ten-year-old girl.”
“Died alone?”
“Yes. A friend came early in the night to see her, but the law, you know, allows no one to go into and then come out of an infected house, except you buriers.”
“And this friend said he would want to come out.”
“Of course.”
“So he went away?”
“She did; it was a woman.”
“Then, the crying don’t come from that house.”
“No, from over there. They raised the window an hour ago, and a man said, ‘My son just died and my wife is now taken sick in the same way.’ He wanted to come out for medicine, but I couldn’t let him. You can hear him.”
“We’ll have trouble with him, likely.”
“Yes. He may want to go to the church-yard.”
Just then the window was raised and the white face of a man peered out over the sill. Even the hardened buriers felt sick at heart, as they caught the trembling tone of his voice and heard his words. He said:
“So you have come for them?”
“Then there’s seven instead of six,” whispered the watchman; “for I only counted on one here.”
“And everything is gone from me,” continued the man at the window.
“We can’t say nothing cheerful,” said the watchman, in low voice, to the two men near him, “so it’s best to keep quiet, except when necessary. Go in there first,” he added, pointing to the house wherein lay the dead girl.
While the two buriers went in and were carrying out the body, the watchman said to the man at the window: “Is your door locked?”
“They’re all dead,” he answered, “there’s no need coming in. You can’t help them any, and it’s better they remain here than be thrown into that black pit. I’ve seen it. I went out the night John Andrews died. They threw him in naked, and at least a hundred others were in the same great hole. It isn’t christian-like.”
“Come, open the door,” said the watchman.
“No,” returned the man. “They’re my dead.”
“He’s crazy,” whispered the watchman.
“And we have no time to spare,” suggested the driver.
“And you’ll have a load with the four over in that house,” said the watchman.
“To-morrow we’ll come for that pale face, too,” remarked the burier; and then they proceeded with their task at the other house.
Gyves nervously thought of his own family as he watched the proceedings in the lane. They lived in no better quarters, and although the plague had not yet visited his neighborhood, he could find little to cheer him in that fact.
The cart now began rolling through Cheapside. The sun, well cleared from the clouds along the horizon, was rapidly drinking up the dampness of streets and roof-tops. Gyves was reverent enough to bow his head, as, gleaming before his eyes, he saw the gilt cross in Cheap. It was an imposing object for the center of the thoroughfare, but the fact of it being an obstruction to the current of midday trade was not apparent at this early hour, when only one vehicle was wheeling under one of its extended arms. This vehicle stopped for its living load to refresh itself at the stream of water pouring from the breast of the alabaster image of Diana that stood out from the tabernacle under the cross. During the interval Gyves’ eyes ranged from the muddy and broken pavement to the dangling signs of every conceivable trade, to the projecting galleries of the upper stories of great buildings, to the fronts of imposing churches, and then to the open and continuing space ahead into which Cheapside entered and ran on as Newgate street. It was into Newgate street that the cart was now driven. On it went in haste, for other travelers were beginning to thread the thoroughfares, and the Charter House burying ground was still at some distance, outside the city wall. No closed gates confronted them either at the city wall or at the cemetery, through whose open ways they passed.
Gyves was at length amid the tombs and the cypresses of the now long since abandoned necropolis, and was close enough to the cart to hear the crunching of its wheels on the freshly graveled road, and for the driver to notice him. He was taken for a mourner, and even the gruff sexton who looked from his window in the little house just within the wall, failed to come forth and warn him to keep outside the gate.
He idly watched the unloading of the vehicle; and with that task completed, the men, as though exhausted with the night’s unpleasant work, immediately drove away without glancing at the solitary figure near the pile of corpses. The burden of the cart should have been cast immediately into a common grave, but one had just been entirely filled and a new one was not quite ready. This condition of things was most opportune for Gyves. He did not delay; but, taking hold of the shoulders of one body wrapped in a sheet, he was about to shove it off the pile, when he heard some one say in a tone of remonstrance:
“What are you doing there?”
The voice came from a grave-digger, who, having raised himself from a deep trench near at hand, now stood near the pile of corpses. He had been digging in the rain and the mud all night, and the morning light and the warmth of his own respiring body wrapped him in a steam. It arose, as though from a dung-hill, for he was plastered with black mud from head to foot. Gyves raised his head and stared at him. There was nothing to dread but the shovel, so, pulling two bodies apart, and rolling one over the rest, he said:
“Looking for a brother.”
“Got a permit?”
“No,” gruffly answered Gyves.
“What do you want of him? He’s, dead, ain’t he?”
“I want to identify him.”
“You’re taking a risk,” continued the grave digger.
“How so?”
“The plague.”
“Bah!” exclaimed Gyves.
“And, furthermore, it’s a crime.”
“Go back to your hole,” growled Gyves.
“For you are rifling the body of the dead,” continued the man, raising his voice.
Gyves had found the corpse of Tabbard; and, at the last loud words, he was thrusting his hands into the pockets of the dead man.
“Keep your clapper still,” sneered Gyves, contemptuously.
The man turned and ran toward the house near the open gate of the cemetery, yelling for help as he did so. Gyves had already completed his search; there was nothing in the pockets. As he clambered off the pile, he saw a man from the house meet the grave-digger. They came toward him. Their looks were menacing and the newcomer held a blunderbuss in his hands. Gyves could not retreat, so he confronted them.
“Give yourself up,” said the man with the blunderbuss. He was the sexton and spoke authoritatively; and the man with the shovel supported the order with the words: “It never misses fire.”
“What should I give myself up for?” asked Gyves.
“Trespassing.”
“And robbing the dead,” added the grave digger.
“Drop your gun,” commanded Gyves, “I’m an officer.”
He pulled open his doublet exposing his badge of authority.
“And, moreover,” he continued, “I have taken nothing.”
The sexton looked inquiringly at his companion.
“I saw him search the pockets of one of those corpses.”
“For my papers and to identify him,” responded Gyves, “and found nothing. The paper I wanted was not there.”
The guardian of the place appeared satisfied. He lowered the muzzle of his blunderbuss, and the three walked toward the entrance. Gyves had been growing paler with every step taken by him. The result of his search for the warrant had staggered him much more than had the leveled shotgun. He feared that Bame had it. He had no idea of what prosecution might be instituted against him, or what punishment might be inflicted; but, knowing that thieves, found guilty of stealing above twelve pence, were hung, he had reason to fear a similar fate for his more grievous offense. By the time he reached the sexton’s house he was of the color of chalk and his knees gave way. The two men assisted him to the steps before the house.
“It is as I expected,” murmured the grave-digger.
“The plague?” queried the sexton, fixing his wide open eyes upon Gyves’ face.
“Why, yes,” answered the grave-digger.
“No,” panted Gyves in a low voice, “I’ll be better in a few minutes.”
Both men drew back and shook their heads. They waited, fearful of seeing him lose consciousness, rave and die; but much to their surprise his color came back; he staggered to his feet; he asked for water, which he received and drank; he uttered his thanks, strode down the road, and passed through the open gate.
When Gyves asserted his position as an officer to the two men in the cemetery, he had felt that it was about the last time he could take such a stand. Later, upon that day, he was removed from office at the instance of Bame, the charge being that he had parted with official papers; neglected his duties, and proved himself incompetent to perform them. He could not produce the warrant. Bame produced the fragment of the seal and portions of the caption and the body of the writ. It closed Gyves’ public career. He was plunged into abject poverty; in the wake of famine came the black destroyer, and his entire family was torn from him in a few hours.
It was not strange that he attributed all his misfortune to Bame. If at every curse he muttered against his accuser, he had drawn a poniard across a whetstone, the blade would have been as narrow as a lancet. He dogged Bame’s steps; he waited for him always with dark intentions; but like Hamlet, he deferred action.