“Mention it not—mention it not!” said the minister, waving his hand; “I am a man, Sir Philip, subject to like temptations of passion as other men. Heartily, and in all humbleness, I have endeavored to forgive; but try me not again by bringing my first bitterness to my remembrance—my personal wrong is a dead wrong—disturb not the oblivion of its peace.”
“And yet,” said the young man, gently, “and yet I have wept for it ere I well knew what sorrow meant. Yonder old walls of Thornleigh could bear me witness how bitterly the boy lamented over that cruel deed; but, to speak of other matters less private than this—I have no sympathy, Master Field, with the injustice which has banished you from your place. My desires and hopes are more with you than against you. We are both on our way to face death—it may be we shall never see these hills again; let us go together, and in peace.”
The Puritan extended his hand; the young man grasped it heartily. Greater difference of rank or faith, birth or years, could not have hindered the infallible brotherhood of those twain—alike stout, generous, and manful, loving their fellows and their God!
CHAPTER III.
“You look pale and gaze,
And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
To see the strange impatience of the heavens:
But if you would consider the true cause
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why all these things change, from their ordinance,
Their nature, and pre-formed faculties
To monstrous quality, why, you shall find
That Heaven hath infused them with these spirits
To make them instruments of fear, and warning
Unto some monstrous state.”
Julius Cæsar.
They had at last entered London; it was a genial May day, warm and balmy, and the sun was beginning to descend the western sky. As they approached the city, numberless little companies, carefully avoiding contact with each other, met them on the road, leaving the vicinity of the pestilence; on foot, on horseback, and in carriages, with heavy wagons loaded with household stores and furniture, citizens, nobles, clergymen, and laborers, were alike flying for their lives.
But in the quaint outskirts of the town there was still little difference perceptible. Men went about plying their ordinary business; shops were open; the stream of traffic had not yet received its final check. Only various features of change, singular and ominous, presented themselves here and there. Apothecaries’ booths abounded on every side, full of all manner of nostrums—remedies, and preventives for the fatal disease, before whose acknowledged presence London trembled. Almost as plentiful at street-corners and ends of alleys, were the brazen symbols of the astrologer, the mysterious signs of fortune-tellers, and other spiritual quacks, vending their perilous stuff for the relief of that craving, coward appetite of fear, at once foolhardy and timorous, which seeks to investigate the hidden fate of its own selfish future. Sometimes the twin empiricisms united in one person, were signified in signboard, or notice, at some much-frequented door. The singular excitement of the time was evident every where.
Passengers warily walking in the middle of the street—sudden shrinking and confusion here and there, when some invalid, with bandaged throat and pale face, was descried limping among the common stream—struck Edith with an indefinite pang as they rode slowly onward. They had parted with their fellow-traveler a short time before, having themselves made a considerable circuit, in order to visit the family of an ejected minister in Surrey. Sir Philip had gone on without delay to his mother’s house, in Westminster, and Caleb Field and his daughter, with as much speed as their wearied horse would permit them, were pursuing their way to the residence of an old parishioner, on the Hampstead Road, who had offered to receive them.
The first church they passed was open; from its doors poured a stream of people, newly dismissed from one of the many solemn services of that fear-stricken time. The preacher, a dark, grave man, wearing over his black dress the Geneva band, was last of all. He was passing on, without lifting his eyes, eagerly conversing with a youth who walked beside him.
“Master Vincent,” said Field, as he passed by, “does the work prosper with you in this evil time?”