"I saw in my spirit the advance of this terrible Black Death; I saw it come to this very place. Dead and dying, cast out of their homes by those who would neither bury the one nor tend the other, were left lying in the streets around, and a deadly fear was upon all the place. And then I saw a man step forth amongst these miserable wretches, and the man had thy face, dear cousin. And he came forward and said to those who were yet willing to touch the sick, "Carry them into my house; I have a place made ready for them. Bring them to my house; there they will he tended and cared for." And then I thought that I saw the bearers lift and carry the sick here to this house, and that there they were received by some devoted men and women who had not been driven away by the general terror, and there were clean and comfortable beds awaiting the sick, and great fires of aromatic herbs burning upon the hearths to keep away the fumes of the pestilence from the watchers. And as the wretched and stricken creatures found themselves in this fair haven, they blessed him who had had this care for them; and those who died, died in comfort, shriven and a.s.soiled by holy priests, whilst some amongst the number were saved, and saved through the act of him who had found them this safe refuge."
Raymond ceased speaking, and looked out over the fair landscape commanded by the oriel window of the room in which they were standing; and John"s pale face suddenly kindled and glowed. The same spirit of self-sacrifice animated them both; but the elder of the pair realized, when it was put before him, how little he was fit for the work which the younger had set himself to do, whilst he had the means as well as the disposition to perform an act of mercy which in the end might be a greater boon to many than any service he could offer now. And if he did this thing -- if he turned his house into a house of mercy for the sick of the plague -- he would then have his own opportunity to tend and care for the sufferers.
Only one thought for a moment hindered him from giving an answer. He looked at Raymond, and said:
"Thinkest thou that this sickness will surely come this way?"
"In very truth I believe that it will ravage the land from end to end. I know that Father Paul looked to see the whole country swept by the scourge of G.o.d. Fear not but that thy work will find thee here. Thou wilt not have to wait long, methinks. Thou wilt but have fair time to make ready all that thou wilt need -- beds, medicaments, aromatic wood, and perfumes -- and gather round thee a few faithful, trusty souls who will not fly at the approach of danger. It may be no easy task to find these, yet methinks they will be found here and there; for where G.o.d sends His scourges upon His earth, He raises up pious men and women too, to tend the sufferers and prove to the world that He has still amongst the gay and worldly His own children, His own followers, who will follow wherever He leads."
John"s mind was quickly made up.
"I will remain behind and do this thing," he said. "Perchance thou and I will yet work together in this very place amongst the sick and dying."
"I well believe it," answered Raymond, with one of his far-away looks; and the cousins stood together looking out over the green world bathed in the light of sunset, wondering how and when they would meet again, but both strangely possessed with perfect confidence that they would so meet.
Then Raymond went to make his simple preparations for the morrow"s ride.
He had intended travelling quite alone, and chancing the perils of the road, which, however, in these times of peace and rejoicing, were not very great; for freebooters seldom disturbed travellers by day, save perhaps in very lonely forest roads. But when Roger, the woodman"s son, heard whither his master"s steps were bent, and upon what errand he was going, he fell at his feet in one of his wild pa.s.sions of devotional excitement, and begged to be allowed to follow him even to the death.
"It may well be to the death, good Roger," answered Raymond gravely.
"Men say that death is certain for those who take the breath of the smitten persons; and such as go amongst them go at the risk of their lives. I do not bid thee follow me -- I well believe the peril is great; but if thou willest to do this thing, I dare not say thee nay, for methinks it is a work of G.o.d, and may well win His approval."
"I will go," answered Roger, without the slightest hesitation. "Do I not owe all -- my body and soul alike -- to you and Father Paul? Where you go, there will I go with you. What you fear not to face, I fear not either. For life or for death I am yours; and if the Holy Saints and the Blessed Virgin will but give me strength to fight and to conquer this fell foe, I trow they will do it because that thou art half a saint thyself, and they will know that I go to be with thee, to watch over thee, and perchance, by my service and my prayers, guard thee in some sort from ill."
Raymond smiled and held out his hand to his faithful servant. In times of common peril men"s hearts are very closely knit together. The bond between the two youths seemed suddenly to take a new form; and when they rode forth at sunrise on the morrow, with John waving an adieu to them and watching their departure with a strange look of settled purpose on his face, it was no longer as master and servant that they rode, but as friends and comrades going forth to meet a deadly peril together.
It seemed strange, as they rode along in the bright freshness of a clear September morning, to realize that any scenes of horror and death could be enacting themselves upon this fair earth not very many miles away.
Yet as they rode ever onwards and drew near to the infected districts, the sunshine became obscured by a thick haze, the fresh wind which had hitherto blown in their faces dropped, and the air was still with a deadly stillness new to both of them -- a stillness which was oppressive and which weighed upon their spirits like lead. The first intimation they had of the pestilence itself was the sight of the carca.s.ses of several beasts lying dead in their pasture, and, what was more terrible still, the body of a man lying beside them, as though he had dropped dead as he came to drive them into shelter.
Raymond looked at the little group with an involuntary shudder, and Roger crossed himself and muttered a prayer. But they did not turn out of their way; they were now nearing the gates of the Monastery, and it was of Father Paul that Raymond"s thoughts were full. Plainly enough he was in the heart of the peril. How had it gone with him since the sickness had appeared here?
That question was answered the moment the travellers appeared within sight of the well-known walls. They saw a sight that lived in their memories for many a day to come.
Instead of the calm and solitude which generally reigned in this place, a great crowd was to be seen around the gate, but such a crowd as the youths had never dreamed of before. Wretched, plague-stricken people, turned from their own doors and abandoned by their kindred, had dragged themselves from all parts to the doors of the Monastery, in the hope that the pious Brothers would give them help and a corner to die in peace. And that they were not disappointed in this hope was well seen: for as Raymond and his companion appeared, they saw that one after another of these wretched beings was carried within the precincts of the Monastery by the Brothers; whilst amongst those who lay outside waiting their turn for admission, or too far gone to be moved again, a tall thin form moved fearlessly, bending over the dying sufferers and hearing their last confessions, giving priestly absolution, or soothing with strong and tender hands the last agonies of some stricken creature.
Raymond, with a strange, tense look upon his face, went straight to the Father where he stood amongst the dying and the dead, and just as he reached his side the Monk stood suddenly up and looked straight at him.
His austere face did not relax, but in his eyes shone a light that looked like triumph.
"It is well, my son," he said. "I knew that thou wouldest be here anon.
The soldier of the Cross is ever found at his post in such a time as this."
CHAPTER XVIII. WITH FATHER PAUL.
All that evening and far into the night Raymond worked with the Brothers under Father Paul, bringing in the sick, burying the dead, and tending all those for whom anything could be done to mitigate their sufferings, or bring peace either of body or mind.
By nightfall the ghastly a.s.semblage about the Monastery doors had disappeared. The living were lying in rows in the narrow beds, or upon the straw pallets of the Brothers, filling dormitories and Refectory alike; the dead had been laid side by side in a deep trench which had been hastily dug by order of Father Paul; and after he had read over them the burial service, earth and lime had been heaped upon the bodies, and one end of the long trench filled in. Before morning there were a score more corpses to carry forth, and out of the thirty and odd stricken souls who lay within the walls, probably scarce ten would recover from the malady.
But no more of the sick appeared round and about the Monastery gates as they had been doing for the past three days; and when Raymond asked why this was so, Father Paul looked into his face with a keen, searching glance as he replied:
"Verily, my son, it is because there be no more to come -- no more who have strength to drag themselves out hither. Tomorrow I go forth to visit the villages where the sick be dying like beasts in the shambles.
I go to shrive and confess the sick, to administer the last rites to the dying, to read the prayers of the Church over those who are being carried to the great common grave. G.o.d alone knows whether even now the living may suffice to bury the dead. But where the need is sorest, there must His faithful servants be found."
Raymond looked back with a face full of resolute purpose.
"Father, take me with thee," he said.
Father Paul looked earnestly into that fair young face, that was growing so intensely spiritual in its expression, and asked one question.
"My son, and if it should be going to thy death?"
"I will go with thee, Father Paul, be it for life or for death."
"G.o.d bless and protect thee, my son!" said the Father. "I verily believe that thou art one over whom the Blessed Saints and the Holy Angels keep watch and ward, and that thou wilt pa.s.s unscathed even through this time of desolation and death."
Raymond had bent his knee to receive the Father"s blessing, and when he rose he saw that Roger was close behind him, likewise kneeling; and reading the thought in his mind, he said to the Father:
"Wilt thou not give him thy blessing also? for I know that he too will go with us and face the peril, be it for life or death."
Father Paul laid his hand upon the head of the second lad.
"May G.o.d"s blessing rest also upon thee, my son," he said. "In days past thou hast been used as an instrument of evil, and hast been forced to do the devil"s own work. Now G.o.d, in His mercy, has given thee work to do for Him, whereby thou mayest in some sort make atonement for the past, and show by thy faith and piety that thou art no longer a bondservant unto sin."
Then turning to both the youths as they stood before him, the Father added, in a different and less solemn tone:
"And since your purpose is to go forth with me tomorrow, you must now take some of that rest without which youthful frames cannot long dispense. Since early dawn you have been travelling and working at tasks of a nature to which you are little used. Come with me, therefore, and pa.s.s the remaining hours of the night in sleep. I will arouse you for our office of early ma.s.s, and then we will forth together. Till then sleep fearlessly and well. Sleep will best fit you for what you will see and hear tomorrow."
So saying, the Father led them into a narrow cell where a couple of pallet beds had been placed, and where some slices of brown bread and a pitcher of spring water were likewise standing.
"Our fare is plain, but it is wholesome. Eat and drink, my sons, and sleep in peace. Wake not nor rise until I come to you again."
The lads were indeed tired enough, though they had scarcely known it in the strange excitement of the journey, and amid the terrible scenes of death and sickness which they had witnessed around and about the Monastery doors since their arrival there. Now, however, that they had received the command to rest and sleep (and to gainsay the Father"s commands was a thing that would never have entered their minds), they were willing enough to obey, and had hardly laid themselves down before they fell into a deep slumber, from which neither awoke until the light of day had long been shining upon the world, and the Father stood beside them bidding them rise and follow him.
In a few minutes their simple toilet and ablutions had been performed, and they made their way along the familiar pa.s.sage to the chapel, from whence a low sound of chanting began to arise. There were not many of the Brothers present at the early service, most of them being engaged in tending the plague-stricken guests beneath their roof. But the Father was performing the office of the ma.s.s, and when he had himself partaken of the Sacrament, he signed to the two boys, who were about to go forth with him into scenes of greater peril than any they had witnessed heretofore, to come and receive it likewise.
The service over, and some simple refreshment partaken of, the youths prepared for their day"s toil, scarce knowing what they would be like to see, but resolved to follow Father Paul wherever he went, anxious only to accomplish successfully such work as he should find for them to do.
Each had a certain burden to carry with him -- some of the cordials that had been found to give most relief in cases of utter collapse and exhaustion, a few simple medicaments and outward applications thought to be of some use in allaying the pain of those terrible black swellings from which the sickness took its significant name, and some simply-prepared food for the sufferers, who were often like to perish from inanition even before the plague had done its worst. For stricken persons, or those supposed to be stricken, were often turned out of their homes even by their nearest relatives, and forced to wander about homeless and starving, none taking pity upon their misery, until the poison in their blood did its fatal work, and they dropped down to die.
That loosening of the bands of nature and affection in times of deadly sickness has always been one of the most terrible features of the outbreaks of the plague when it has visited either this or other lands.
There are some forms of peril that bind men closer and closer together, and that bring into bond of friendship even those who have been before estranged; and terrible though these perils may be, there is always a deep sense of underlying consolation in the closer drawing of the bond of brotherhood. But when the scourge of deadly sickness has pa.s.sed over the land, the effect has almost always been to slacken this tie; the inherent love of life, natural to human beings, turning to an almost incredible selfishness, and inducing men to abandon their nearest and dearest in the hour of peril, leaving them, if stricken, to die alone, or turning them, sick to death though they might be, away from their doors, to perish untended and without shelter. True, there were many bright exceptions to such a code of barbarity, and devoted men and women arose by the score to strive to ameliorate the condition of the sufferers; but for all that, one of the most terrible features of the period of death and desolation was that of the fearful panic it everywhere produced, and the inhuman neglect and cruelty with which the early sufferers were treated by the very persons who, perhaps only a few days or even hours later, had themselves caught the contagion, and were lying dead or dying in the homes from which they had ejected their own kith and kin before.
Of the fearful havoc wrought in England by this scourge of the Black Death many readers of history are scarcely aware. Whole districts were actually and entirely depopulated, not a living creature of any kind being left sometimes within a radius of many miles; and at the lowest computation made by historians, it is believed that not less than one-half of the entire population perished during the outbreak.
But of anything like the magnitude of such a calamity no person at this time had any conception, and little indeed was Raymond prepared for the sights that he was this day to look upon.
The Father and his two a.s.sistants went forth after they had partaken of food, and turned their faces westward.