“Pshaw, Cicely!” said Nick; “why should ye cry? Ye do na know them; so ye need na care.”
“But, Nick,” said she, “nobody seems to care! And, sure, somebody ought to care; for it may be some one’s mother that is dead.”
At that Nick felt a very queer choking in his own throat, and did not rest quite easy in his mind until he had given the silver buckle from his cloak to a boy who stood crying with cold and hunger in the street, and begged a farthing of him for the love of the good God.
Then came a thaw, with mist and fog so thick that people were lost in their own streets, and knocked at their next-door neighbor’s gate to ask the way home. All day long, down by the Thames drums beat upon the wharves and bells ding-donged to guide the watermen ashore; but most of those who needs must fare abroad went over London Bridge, because there, although they might in no wise see, it felt, at least, as if the world were still beneath their feet.
At noon the air was muddy brown, with a bitter taste like watered smoke; at night it was a blinding pall; and though, after mid-December, by order of the Council, every alderman and burgess hung a light before his door, torches, links, and candles only sputtered feebly in the gloom, of no more use than jack-o’-lanterns gone astray, and none but blind men knew the roads.
The city watch was doubled everywhere; and all night long their shouts went up and down—“’Tis what o’clock, and a foggy night!”—and right and left their hurrying staves came thumping helplessly along the walls to answer cries of “Murder!” and of “Help! Watch! Help!” For under cover of the fog great gangs of thieves came down from Hampstead Heath, and robberies were done in the most frequented thoroughfares, between the very lights set up by the corporation; so that it was dangerous to go about save armed and wary as a cat in a crowd.
While such foul days endured there was no singing at St. Paul’s, nor stage-plays anywhere, save at Blackfriars play-house, which was roofed against the weather. And even there at last the fog crept in through cracks and crannies until the players seemed but moving shadows talking through a choking cloud; and Master Will Shakspere’s famous new piece of “Romeo and Juliet,” which had been playing to crowded houses, taking ten pound twelve the day, was fairly smothered off the boards.
Nick was eager to be out in all this blindman’s holiday; but, “Nay,” said Carew; “not so much as thy nose. A fog like this would steal the croak from a raven’s throat, let alone the sweetness from a honey-pot like thine—and bottom crust is the end of pie!” With which, bang went the door, creak went the key, and Carew was off to the Falcon Inn.