Lady Eureka; or, The Mystery: A Prophecy of the Future. Volume 3

by Robert Folkestone Williams

Here the old man’s voice sunk, and he appeared to be powerfully agitated. No one attempted an observation; and after making a strong effort to recover his self-possession, he continued.

“The survivor was a boy of ten years of age; he was one of the few whom the plague had touched and spared. Me it had passed by harmless. But the destruction caused by the pestilence exceeded all calculation. As in my case, whole families were carried off, and districts entirely depopulated. The pits that were dug to throw in the dead were quickly filled, and none were strong enough to dig others. The dead cart stood in the street with its load piled up; for both the driver and the horse had been destroyed by the pestilence. Physicians and surgeons appeared to have been the earliest of its victims. They came to visit their patients, and they died by the bedside. All remedies were tried without avail; all precautions were used, but they were equally useless. There were different opinions existing as to its origin. The royalists said that it was a punishment for the sins of the republicans; and the republicans retorted by proclaiming that it was a judgment on the profligacy of the royalists. Religious fanatics went running about the deserted streets, with streaming hair and blood-shot eyes, shouting out, in piercing tones, ‘Wo! wo! the day of judgment is at hand!’”

This lasted for the better portion of a year; and, after putting the boy in a place of safety, when the pestilence was over, as I journeyed through the country to notice the effects it had produced, where I had once known crowded thoroughfares, I passed along without meeting a single inhabitant. The country appeared to have been completely unpeopled; and in the city, the few persons I met with only made the immense mortality which had existed appear more great. I inquired for the government, and found that not a trace of it was in existence. I asked for the army, and I was shown about a couple of hundred men. I called a meeting of the citizens in the metropolis, and they all came; and they filled a moderate sized room. I explained to them the deplorable state into which the plague had reduced the country, and I asked their counsel and assistance to form some sort of government to manage its affairs. There was a melancholy silence for some minutes. None attempted to speak. Their hearts seemed too full for utterance. At last one of the citizens ventured to wish that I would do what I thought best for the community; and I did do what I thought best. I travelled through every part of this once populous island to notice with my own eyes the exact state of the remaining population. Some cities I found deserted; in others two-thirds of their buildings were untenanted; the rank grass was growing in the public streets, and the gardens of the rich were filled with nettles.

“But the measure of afflictions for this unhappy country had not yet been filled up. No sooner had the pestilence abated, than another enemy, scarcely less dreadful, made its appearance. The continued ravages of war had prevented the tilling of the fields. No one would attempt to sow, knowing how insecure would be his ownership of the crop he might produce. There had been no grain, and no fruits, and no vegetables; and the cattle had died of the plague, or had been destroyed by the enemy. It was in vain attempting to get a supply from foreign countries. Our commerce had been destroyed, for no nation would hold communication with a people among whom raged so destructive a pestilence. They avoided the shores of England as if death was on its soil; and any vessel attempting to communicate with them, or to enter one of their ports, was fired at and sunk. The consequence was, our ships lay rotting in the docks, and their crews were either dead, or had dispersed over the island, and were not to be found. The terrific visitation of famine was now upon us. Every thing was eaten that the human stomach could be brought to swallow. Things the most loathsome to the taste, and offensive to the eyes, were readily and ravenously devoured. Then the cheek sunk; the eye-ball fell; the flesh dwindled away; and all crawled with half lifeless limbs in search of any substance that might lessen the cravings of their appetites. But at last every thing that was digestible disappeared, and the skeleton forms of the sufferers were stretched stiffly on the place where they fell—some in madness, some in despair, and all in agony and dread.

“There was no opportunity allowed me for legislating with any advantage. I thought of every plan that afforded the slightest assistance towards lessening the dreadful effects of the calamity which the whole country was enduring; but I met with no one to second my exertions. The few who retained the use of their faculties were feeble and emaciated. Famine was in their gaunt limbs, and despair upon their aching hearts. No one appeared inclined to pay the slightest attention to any thing but his own sufferings. There was no authority but that of the strong, and they who retained their physical power the longest, robbed the dying of such slight nourishment as they had acquired. The rich would bring out their treasures and offer them for a meal, and when some avaricious wretch was found to make the exchange, one more strong than either would come by, and wrest the food from the impoverished, and the wealth from the miser; and both died within the hour. The breast of the mother became dry, and the infant was abandoned to starve when it became an incumbrance to the famished parent. Cats, dogs, rats, mice, and every kind of animal, no matter how disgusting in its habits, had been greedily devoured; birds, fish, and insects, that had previously been considered loathsome, were sought after as delicacies; and weeds, roots, the leaves of trees, offal, and even many things still more objectionable, became the daily food of many who had been accustomed to the most luxurious fare.

“Finding that I could do no good among the scanty band of skeletons that clung to a lingering existence, I determined on endeavouring to make my way to the northern part of the island, where an industrious and hardy race had managed to retain their independence and prosperity during the wars, the pestilence, and the famine, that ravaged its southern portion. My grandson was too young to walk great distances; so, when he was tired, I placed him upon my shoulder, and thus we journeyed on our way. Our food was acorns, berries, roots, and leaves. Sometimes I was enabled to catch a fish, or a bird, or a small animal; but these were luxuries seldom to be enjoyed. We passed several parties apparently intent upon the same object as ourselves; but many were there of the groups who laid themselves down on the road-side weary and famishing, and there perished. Continually I came upon some individual made desperate by his hunger, scratching up the earth with his hands in search of the worms it contained, which, if found, were eaten with as much enjoyment as the most delicious meats, and if the search was fruitless, the dry soil was crammed into the mouth as a substitute. Very few of the travellers could have reached the end of their journey, for we continued to pass the dying and the dead as far as we proceeded. Sometimes a solitary wretch would be found prostrate at the foot of a tree, the bark of which he had evidently been gnawing; further on a family of children were discovered, with their little bodies shrunk to the bone, and the parents at a short distance, with their faces turned from them, as if they could not look upon their sufferings; and in another place, a lover and his mistress lay clasped in each other’s fleshless arms.

“We were crossing an extensive and barren moor, when we came before a group of dead bodies, among which, to my exceeding astonishment, I beheld a child—a delicate girl of five or six years of age—busily occupied in chasing a butterfly. The scene was so extraordinary that I stood gazing on it for a considerable period before I could determine what to do. The insect’s gaudy wings kept fluttering over the lifeless forms that were cold and stiff on the ground, sometimes alighting on a hand, sometimes on a face; and the child, in an ecstasy of delight, screaming, and laughing, and stretching out its little arms, pursued it from place to place. What a time was this for reflection! Here was life in the midst of death—the pursuit of pleasure among the most fatal and least endurable examples of pain. It was a wonderful sight! The girl seemed to know neither want nor sorrow; and continued her sport, indifferent to the spectral shapes that lay extended at her feet. Their ghastly stare, and gaunt visages, had no terrors for her. The hunt of the butterfly occupied all her thoughts, and the hope of attaining possession of its beautiful colours seemed the only desire entertained. After watching her movements with indescribable interest for several minutes, I advanced towards the child, and invited her to go with me. I had considerable difficulty to get her to leave the butterfly; and when I led her away from the spot, she chatted with infantile volubility, as if there was nothing else but the butterfly in the world.

“I found the people of the northern provinces hospitable, and with them I lived for nearly half a century. They escaped the ravages of the pestilence by not allowing any infected persons from the neighbouring counties, who crowded towards the borders, to enter into their territory. None had presented themselves during the prevalence of the famine but myself; and their own frugality saved them from the horrors which had desolated England. They looked upon the southern portion of the island as a doomed country, for although several parties from the north had gone there for the purpose of forming settlements, they either returned after a short stay, stating that neither cattle nor crops would nourish on the land, or were never more heard of, and were supposed to have fallen victims to the pirates who occasionally visited the coast. I passed my time in educating the two children of whom I had taken charge, and both made great progress under my instructions. The boy became a fine, active, intelligent man, the girl an admirable example of womankind; and as I found that their hearts were for each other, in due time I had them made man and wife. I have outlived them and all their progeny, with the exception of Lilya, whom, after the decease of her family, I took with me to England, having at the time an ardent desire to revisit its desolated shores.

“What I found England I need scarcely describe; you see it before you. It was a complete ruin. A sad and miserable remnant of her people did strive to till the land; but the soil refused to give sustenance to the seed, and the cultivator could gather nothing but a harvest of weeds. The earth was abandoned for the waters, and the farmers became fishermen; but the sea and the river gave an inadequate supply. One by one the inhabitants dropped off, till at last the only human creatures within the country were myself and Lilya. We managed to subsist by hunting and fishing. Our fare was not at all times very delicate, and was seldom very plentiful; but we provided for ourselves tolerably well. We were obliged to rely upon our own resources; for the savage appearance of the island, and the belief that it was doomed to destruction, prevented our being visited by any vessels from the continent; and even the pirates from the neighbouring islands, having found that the country contained nothing to tempt them to a visit, turned their attention to more opulent regions. Lilya and I, therefore, had the whole land to ourselves, and over it we held absolute sovereignty. Even the savage monsters of the forest appeared to acknowledge our supremacy, for none offered to molest us. We took our way through deserted piles and fallen monuments; and if we disturbed the lion in his lair, or the eagle in his eyrie, they made way for our approach, and returned to their haunts when we were gone.

“Thus passed the time. Lilya grew up as you see—a child of the forest, skilful in snaring game, and in preserving skins; affectionate in her manner, gentle in her temper, and shy as a dove in her nest. As for me, I was a wanderer over the lands of my forefathers. The stream, the vale, the mountain, and the plain, were accustomed to my visits. I became a denizen of the forest and the plain—a resident in the deserted cities. I found a dwelling in the palace and the hut; and all places were my home. I experienced a melancholy pleasure in beholding the scenes in which the greatness of my country had once been exhibited. I walked among the crumbling ruins of her once gorgeous halls. The sunken roofs of her stately cathedrals for me were full of religious awe and veneration; the dilapidated battlements of her ancient castles seemed still to show the dauntless valour of the spirits by whom they had been defended; and the moss and lichens that disfigured her public monuments gave only a fresher interest to the worth they represented. From these I gathered the memories of a better time, and the glories of the past warmed my old heart with the vigour of a second youth. I lived over again the departed age—I recalled to life the buried generations—I contemplated the happiness which the grave had long since hid in her bosom—and the discoloured stones around me seemed to echo the busy goings on of an industrious population. Free hearts were throbbing proudly around me, and the stillness of the desert along which I stalked was made alive with the pleasures of the young, the noble, and the brave.