“It ebbs—it ebbs!” exclaimed the young man; “the tide has turned, Master Field—the fury of the pestilence has abated—there is hope!”
They all rose; the timid Dame Rogers, who had shrunk from him before, pressing nearest now to the bearer of good tidings—and gathered round him in an eager ring, with the same fit of tremulous, uncertain joyousness upon themselves, to learn the particulars of this unlooked for gladness.
“Near two thousand less in this one week,” said Sir Philip, more agitated now than he had been in the greatest horror of the darkness. “The last wave was a mighty one, but the tide has receded far already. Let us thank God! when there was neither help nor hope, He hath done it of His own grace. The pestilence that hath stricken so many is itself stricken, blessed be the day!”
And so they took their places again, and amid low sobs and silent weeping, gave the Great Physician thanks. Strongly nerved and strained to the uttermost, the sudden relaxation took the form of feebleness; and even Caleb Field himself, whose stout soul had never quailed amid all these terrors, did now, his daughter weeping delicious tears beside him, with faltering voice and quickened breathing, pour out the flood of his warm thanksgiving before his God.
And when they had taken their morning meal, they went out together to St. Margaret’s with lightened hearts—hearts that began timidly to resume their old functions of joy and hoping. As they approached Westminster, they observed a group of men a little way before them, whose mood was clearly evident by the congratulations they exchanged—congratulations which were more of gesture than of speech. They dispersed before Master Field, his daughter, and Sir Philip came up; but one who met them, a stranger, paused to stretch out his hand, and say:
“Have ye heard the news? God be thanked!”
“Yea, brother, and amen,” said Master Field, grasping the extended hand of the stranger. “Let us not forget His goodness, lest a worse thing befall us.”
The man passed on. The universal gladness, like the universal sorrow, made all brethren.
They were passing through a narrow street. A woman stood at a high window of one of those old picturesque gabled houses which exist among us no longer.
“Neighbor,” she cried, “good neighbor Waterman, heard ye the news?”