“But, father, there are nurses, are there not?” said Edith, “and men whose office is about the dead; and if they venture thus—”
“Wherefore should not we?” said her father, as she paused; “indeed I know not, save that in the blunted sense of those attendants of the dead and dying, there seemeth a singular armor, Edith, which other mortals have not. But fear not for my shrinking. Wheresoever I am called, if it is not in foolhardiness, I shall go boldly; but it is said they have a hard measure in contemplation, which shall bar us forth from all sick beds. The Lord Mayor and Council, men say, will have all houses into which the plague enters, shut up.”
“Shut up, father?”
“It means divided by a rigorous watch from all intercourse with the world without: a hard thing—terrible to think upon. When the plague appears on one of a household, the whole must be excluded from all blessings of external life, from air, from breath, from means of escape—shut up within their own narrow walls, with the deadly foe beside them, polluting their very breath. A terrible measure, Edith, yet inevitable, as men say.”
“And, father, look at this,” said Edith, showing her notes of many names of poverty-stricken households; “I fear me, Master Godliman’s treasure will soon be expended among these.”
“And this is thy chosen work, Edith,” said her father, sadly. “Woe is me! my child, that I grudge thee to this dedication! Edith! Edith! I would thou hadst more thought of thyself!”
“Nay, I have even too much,” said Edith, smiling; “for see you how I have robbed Dame Rogers of her perfumes; and see you further, father, what a great flask of vinegar I have gotten for myself withal, so that I shall even do what they say of the Morning in the poets’ books, and scatter odors when I go abroad. And I would fain begin, if it please you, father; wherefore will you give me the counsel you promised for my errand?”
Master Field was deeply moved: he needed some moments to compose himself. “I can give you no special counsel, Edith; I can only pray you, as you value God’s precious gift of life, given us for other ends than the pleasure of our own wayward will, that you use all caution in your work. Be careful of entering any house: be careful of speaking to any stranger whom you need not to speak withal; keep those odors you spoke of about you continually. Edith, I say I can give you no special counsel; only remember that, save thyself, I have naught in this wide earth, and be tender of thy young health, of thy fragile ability, my sole child!”
So the next morning (it was the second day of June), the youthful Puritan donned her black silk hood and mantle with a beating heart, and prepared to begin her labor. Her father had positively forbidden her accompanying him to church; there was no duty there, as he truly said, that she should thrust herself into peril. So she filled the little leathern bag, which was Dame Rogers’s purse on market-days, with Master Godliman’s silver coins, and fortified with her perfumes, and having her handkerchief slightly wetted from her vinegar-flask—more from the youthful excitement of novelty than any serious reason—she left her apartment to set out on her errand.
Below, a controversy was going on between Dame Rogers and her daughter. When Edith descended the stairs, she found Mercy standing with her hood in her hand. Her mother was remonstrating,