“Hold your peace, ye fools,” said her brother, sullenly. “Is not the judgment at our very doors, and will ye quarrel which shall be first taken?”
Edith had entered Ralph’s trimmer garden, and began to speak to him.
“It is true she says,” said the man, sadly. “An’ it were not for the terror we’ve all gotten of it, I’d be almost glad to welcome this plague, Mistress Edith; for it’s a pitiful sight to see hungry children; and where they’re to get another meal I know not.”
“And is there no hope of work?” said Edith.
“None, none,” said the man, with a kind of stern derision; “for what are gentlefolk like to care for such wares as ours, when they’re flying for their lives? and for us that can’t fly—why we must e’en stay and starve, for aught I see, till the plague comes and frees us, and that won’t be long, as men say.”
Some gentle words of kindness melted this rough mood. Ralph Tennison turned away his head, and faltered in his speech; for what he said was true—they were stationary between famine and the plague, all the more liable to the attack of the one, because they were weakened by the other.
The wives came to the doors, one by one, as they perceived Edith. She inquired after the health of their families—the inquiry meant something in those days—and gave them money. They received it in eager joy and gratitude. A little longer she remained with them; and giving them gentle counsel, and one kind word of warning more solemn than that, went on her further way.
The next name on her list was that of Robert Turner, an old man with a large family of daughters, who had earned his bread by working for a famous and fashionable manufacturer of furniture, patronized by the luxurious courtiers of Charles. The door was jealously closed when she reached the house. Edith knocked gently. The eldest of the daughters, a faded, thin, pale woman, growing old, cautiously opened it, and, holding it ajar, stood, as it seemed, guarding the entrance.
“Are you all well, Dorothy? We have newly come home again, and I called to see you,” said Edith, with some shyness.
“I thank you, Mistress Edith, we are well,” said Dorothy, gravely; “and even right glad we were, for all so sad as the cause is, to see your good father in his own place once more.”