"Good Bridget, look well to thy store of herbs, and take ample provision of all such as will allay fever and destroy the poison that works in the blood. For methinks there will be great work to be done by thee and me ere another sun has set; and every aid that nature can give us we will thankfully make use of."
"Your palfrey is yet in the stable, fair Mistress," said William, "and there be likewise the strong sorrel from the farm, whereupon Bridget can ride pillion behind me. Shall I have them ready at break of day tomorrow? We shall then gain the town before the day's work has well begun."
"Do so," answered Joan, with decision. "I would fain have started by night; but it will be wiser to tarry for the light of day. Good William, I thank thee for thy true and faithful service. We are going forth to danger and perchance to death; but we go in a good cause, and we have no need to fear."
And when William had retired, she turned to Bridget with shining eyes, and said:
"Ah, did I not always say that John was the truest knight of them all? The others have won their spurs; they have won the applause of men. They have all their lives looked down on John as one unable to wield a sword, one well-nigh unworthy of the ancient name he bears. But which of yon gay knights would have done what he is doing now? Who of all of them would stand forth fearless and brave in the teeth of this far deadlier peril than men ever face upon the battlefield? I trow not one of them would have so stood before a peril like this. They have left that for the true Knight of the Cross!"
At dawn next day Joan said adieu to her old home, and set her face steadily forward towards Guildford. The chill freshness of the November air was pleasant after the long period of oppressive warmth and closeness which had gone before, and now that the leaves had really fallen from the trees, there was less of the heavy humidity in the air that seemed to hold the germs of distemper and transmit them alike to man and beast.
The sun was not quite up as they started; but as they entered the silent streets of Guildford it was shining with a golden glory in strange contrast to the scenes upon which it would shortly have to look. Early morning was certainly the best time for Joan to enter the town, for the cart had been its round, the dead had been removed from the streets, and the houses were quieter than they often were later in the day. Once in a way a wild shriek or a burst of demoniacal laughter broke from some window; and once a girl, with hair flying wildly down her back, flew out of one of the houses sobbing and shrieking in a frenzy of terror, and was lost to sight down a side alley before Joan could reach her side.
Pursuing their way through the streets, they turned down the familiar road leading to John's house, and dismounting at the gate, Joan gave up her palfrey to William to seek stabling for it behind, and walked up with Bridget to the open door of the house.
That door was kept wide open night and day, and none who came were ever turned away. Joan entered the hall, to find great fires burning there, and round these fires were crowded shivering and moaning beings, some of the latest victims of the distemper, who had been brought within the hospitable shelter of that house of mercy, but who had not yet been provided with beds; for the numbers coming in day by day were even greater than the vacancies made by deaths constantly occurring in the wards (as they would now be called). Helpers were few, and of these one or another would be stricken down, and carried away to burial after a few hours' illness.
Of the wretched beings grouped about the fires several were little children, and Joan's heart went out in compassion to the suffering morsels of humanity. Taking a little moaning infant upon her knee, and letting two more pillow their weary beads against her dress, she signed to Bridget to remove her riding cloak, which she gently wrapped about the scantily-clothed form of a woman extended along the ground at her feet, to whom the children apparently belonged. The woman was dying fast, as her glazing eyes plainly showed.