CHAPTER VII.
I DID proceed to Windsor, but not with the intention of remaining there. Iwent but to obtain the consent of Idris, and then to return and take mystation beside my unequalled friend; to share his labours, and save him, ifso it must be, at the expence of my life. Yet I dreaded to witness theanguish which my resolve might excite in Idris. I had vowed to my own heartnever to shadow her countenance even with transient grief, and should Iprove recreant at the hour of greatest need? I had begun my journey withanxious haste; now I desired to draw it out through the course of days andmonths. I longed to avoid the necessity of action; I strove to escape fromthought--vainly--futurity, like a dark image in a phantasmagoria, camenearer and more near, till it clasped the whole earth in its shadow.
A slight circumstance induced me to alter my usual route, and to returnhome by Egham and Bishopgate. I alighted at Perdita's ancient abode, hercottage; and, sending forward the carriage, determined to walk across thepark to the castle. This spot, dedicated to sweetest recollections, thedeserted house and neglected garden were well adapted to nurse mymelancholy. In our happiest days, Perdita had adorned her cottage withevery aid art might bring, to that which nature had selected to favour. Inthe same spirit of exaggeration she had, on the event of her separationfrom Raymond, caused it to be entirely neglected. It was now in ruin: thedeer had climbed the broken palings, and reposed among the flowers; grassgrew on the threshold, and the swinging lattice creaking to the wind, gavesignal of utter desertion. The sky was blue above, and the air impregnatedwith fragrance by the rare flowers that grew among the weeds. The treesmoved overhead, awakening nature's favourite melody--but the melancholyappearance of the choaked paths, and weed-grown flower-beds, dimmed eventhis gay summer scene. The time when in proud and happy security weassembled at this cottage, was gone--soon the present hours would jointhose past, and shadows of future ones rose dark and menacing from the wombof time, their cradle and their bier. For the first time in my life Ienvied the sleep of the dead, and thought with pleasure of one's bed underthe sod, where grief and fear have no power. I passed through the gap ofthe broken paling--I felt, while I disdained, the choaking tears--Irushed into the depths of the forest. O death and change, rulers of ourlife, where are ye, that I may grapple with you! What was there in ourtranquillity, that excited your envy--in our happiness, that ye shoulddestroy it? We were happy, loving, and beloved; the horn of Amaltheacontained no blessing unshowered upon us, but, alas!
la fortuna deidad barbara importuna, oy cadaver y ayer flor, no permanece jamas![1]
As I wandered on thus ruminating, a number of country people passed me.They seemed full of careful thought, and a few words of their conversationthat reached me, induced me to approach and make further enquiries. A partyof people flying from London, as was frequent in those days, had come upthe Thames in a boat. No one at Windsor would afford them shelter; so,going a little further up, they remained all night in a deserted hut nearBolter's lock. They pursued their way the following morning, leaving one oftheir company behind them, sick of the plague. This circumstance oncespread abroad, none dared approach within half a mile of the infectedneighbourhood, and the deserted wretch was left to fight with disease anddeath in solitude, as he best might. I was urged by compassion to hasten tothe hut, for the purpose of ascertaining his situation, and administeringto his wants.
As I advanced I met knots of country-people talking earnestly of thisevent: distant as they were from the apprehended contagion, fear wasimpressed on every countenance. I passed by a group of these terrorists, ina lane in the direct road to the hut. One of them stopped me, and,conjecturing that I was ignorant of the circumstance, told me not to go on,for that an infected person lay but at a short distance.
"I know it," I replied, "and I am going to see in what condition the poorfellow is."
A murmur of surprise and horror ran through the assembly. I continued:--"This poor wretch is deserted, dying, succourless; in these unhappy times,God knows how soon any or all of us may be in like want. I am going to do,as I would be done by."
"But you will never be able to return to the Castle--Lady Idris--hischildren--" in confused speech were the words that struck my ear.
"Do you not know, my friends," I said, "that the Earl himself, now LordProtector, visits daily, not only those probably infected by this disease,but the hospitals and pest houses, going near, and even touching the sick?yet he was never in better health. You labour under an entire mistake as tothe nature of the plague; but do not fear, I do not ask any of you toaccompany me, nor to believe me, until I return safe and sound from mypatient."
So I left them, and hurried on. I soon arrived at the hut: the door wasajar. I entered, and one glance assured me that its former inhabitant wasno more--he lay on a heap of straw, cold and stiff; while a perniciouseffluvia filled the room, and various stains and marks served to shew thevirulence of the disorder.
I had never before beheld one killed by pestilence. While every mind wasfull of dismay at its effects, a craving for excitement had led us toperuse De Foe's account, and the masterly delineations of the author ofArthur Mervyn. The pictures drawn in these books were so vivid, that weseemed to have experienced the results depicted by them. But cold were thesensations excited by words, burning though they were, and describing thedeath and misery of thousands, compared to what I felt in looking on thecorpse of this unhappy stranger. This indeed was the plague. I raised hisrigid limbs, I marked the distortion of his face, and the stony eyes lostto perception. As I was thus occupied, chill horror congealed my blood,making my flesh quiver and my hair to stand on end. Half insanely I spoketo the dead. So the plague killed you, I muttered. How came this? Was thecoming painful? You look as if the enemy had tortured, before he murderedyou. And now I leapt up precipitately, and escaped from the hut, beforenature could revoke her laws, and inorganic words be breathed in answerfrom the lips of the departed.
On returning through the lane, I saw at a distance the same assemblage ofpersons which I had left. They hurried away, as soon as they saw me; myagitated mien added to their fear of coming near one who had entered withinthe verge of contagion.
At a distance from facts one draws conclusions which appear infallible,which yet when put to the test of reality, vanish like unreal dreams. I hadridiculed the fears of my countrymen, when they related to others; now thatthey came home to myself, I paused. The Rubicon, I felt, was passed; and itbehoved me well to reflect what I should do on this hither side of diseaseand danger. According to the vulgar superstition, my dress, my person, theair I breathed, bore in it mortal danger to myself and others. Should Ireturn to the Castle, to my wife and children, with this taint upon me? Notsurely if I were infected; but I felt certain that I was not--a few hourswould determine the question--I would spend these in the forest, inreflection on what was to come, and what my future actions were to be. Inthe feeling communicated to me by the sight of one struck by the plague, Iforgot the events that had excited me so strongly in London; new and morepainful prospects, by degrees were cleared of the mist which had hithertoveiled them. The question was no longer whether I should share Adrian'stoils and danger; but in what manner I could, in Windsor and theneighbourhood, imitate the prudence and zeal which, under his government,produced order and plenty in London, and how, now pestilence had spreadmore widely, I could secure the health of my own family.
I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no one spot of itssurface could I put my finger and say, here is safety. In the south, thedisease, virulent and immedicable, had nearly annihilated the race of man;storm and inundation, poisonous winds and blights, filled up the measure ofsuffering. In the north it was worse--the lesser population graduallydeclined, and famine and plague kept watch on the survivors, who, helplessand feeble, were ready to fall an easy prey into their hands.
I contracted my view to England. The overgrown metropolis, the great heartof mighty Britain, was pulseless. Commerce had ceased. All resort forambition or pleasure was cut off
--the streets were grass-grown--thehouses empty--the few, that from necessity remained, seemed alreadybranded with the taint of inevitable pestilence. In the largermanufacturing towns the same tragedy was acted on a smaller, yet moredisastrous scale. There was no Adrian to superintend and direct, whilewhole flocks of the poor were struck and killed. Yet we were not all to die.No truly, though thinned, the race of man would continue, and the greatplague would, in after years, become matter of history and wonder.Doubtless this visitation was for extent unexampled--more need that weshould work hard to dispute its progress; ere this men have gone out insport, and slain their thousands and tens of thousands; but now man hadbecome a creature of price; the life of one of them was of more worth thanthe so called treasures of kings. Look at his thought-endued countenance,his graceful limbs, his majestic brow, his wondrous mechanism--the typeand model of this best work of God is not to be cast aside as a brokenvessel--he shall be preserved, and his children and his children'schildren carry down the name and form of man to latest time.
Above all I must guard those entrusted by nature and fate to my especialcare. And surely, if among all my fellow-creatures I were to select thosewho might stand forth examples of the greatness and goodness of man, Icould choose no other than those allied to me by the most sacred ties. Somefrom among the family of man must survive, and these should be among thesurvivors; that should be my task--to accomplish it my own life were asmall sacrifice. There then in that castle--in Windsor Castle,birth-place of Idris and my babes, should be the haven and retreat for thewrecked bark of human society. Its forest should be our world--its gardenafford us food; within its walls I would establish the shaken throne ofhealth. I was an outcast and a vagabond, when Adrian gently threw over methe silver net of love and civilization, and linked me inextricably tohuman charities and human excellence. I was one, who, though an aspirantafter good, and an ardent lover of wisdom, was yet unenrolled in any listof worth, when Idris, the princely born, who was herself thepersonification of all that was divine in woman, she who walked the earthlike a poet's dream, as a carved goddess endued with sense, or picturedsaint stepping from the canvas--she, the most worthy, chose me, and gaveme herself--a priceless gift.
During several hours I continued thus to meditate, till hunger and fatiguebrought me back to the passing hour, then marked by long shadows cast fromthe descending sun. I had wandered towards Bracknel, far to the west ofWindsor. The feeling of perfect health which I enjoyed, assured me that Iwas free from contagion. I remembered that Idris had been kept in ignoranceof my proceedings. She might have heard of my return from London, and myvisit to Bolter's Lock, which, connected with my continued absence, mighttend greatly to alarm her. I returned to Windsor by the Long Walk, andpassing through the town towards the Castle, I found it in a state ofagitation and disturbance.
"It is too late to be ambitious," says Sir Thomas Browne. "We cannot hopeto live so long in our names as some have done in their persons; one faceof Janus holds no proportion to the other." Upon this text many fanaticsarose, who prophesied that the end of time was come. The spirit ofsuperstition had birth, from the wreck of our hopes, and antics wild anddangerous were played on the great theatre, while the remaining particle offuturity dwindled into a point in the eyes of the prognosticators.Weak-spirited women died of fear as they listened to their denunciations;men of robust form and seeming strength fell into idiotcy and madness,racked by the dread of coming eternity. A man of this kind was now pouringforth his eloquent despair among the inhabitants of Windsor. The scene ofthe morning, and my visit to the dead, which had been spread abroad, hadalarmed the country-people, so they had become fit instruments to be playedupon by a maniac.
The poor wretch had lost his young wife and lovely infant by the plague. Hewas a mechanic; and, rendered unable to attend to the occupation whichsupplied his necessities, famine was added to his other miseries. He leftthe chamber which contained his wife and child--wife and child no more,but "dead earth upon the earth"--wild with hunger, watching and grief,his diseased fancy made him believe himself sent by heaven to preach theend of time to the world. He entered the churches, and foretold to thecongregations their speedy removal to the vaults below. He appeared likethe forgotten spirit of the time in the theatres, and bade the spectatorsgo home and die. He had been seized and confined; he had escaped andwandered from London among the neighbouring towns, and, with franticgestures and thrilling words, he unveiled to each their hidden fears, andgave voice to the soundless thought they dared not syllable. He stood underthe arcade of the town-hall of Windsor, and from this elevation harangued atrembling crowd.
"Hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth," he cried, "hear thou, all seeing,but most pitiless Heaven! hear thou too, O tempest-tossed heart, whichbreathes out these words, yet faints beneath their meaning! Death is amongus! The earth is beautiful and flower-bedecked, but she is our grave! Theclouds of heaven weep for us--the pageantry of the stars is but ourfuneral torchlight. Grey headed men, ye hoped for yet a few years in yourlong-known abode--but the lease is up, you must remove--children, yewill never reach maturity, even now the small grave is dug for ye--mothers, clasp them in your arms, one death embraces you!"
Shuddering, he stretched out his hands, his eyes cast up, seemed burstingfrom their sockets, while he appeared to follow shapes, to us invisible, inthe yielding air--"There they are," he cried, "the dead! They rise intheir shrouds, and pass in silent procession towards the far land of theirdoom--their bloodless lips move not--their shadowy limbs are void ofmotion, while still they glide onwards. We come," he exclaimed, springingforwards, "for what should we wait? Haste, my friends, apparel yourselvesin the court-dress of death. Pestilence will usher you to his presence. Whythus long? they, the good, the wise, and the beloved, are gone before.Mothers, kiss you last--husbands, protectors no more, lead on thepartners of your death! Come, O come! while the dear ones are yet in sight,for soon they will pass away, and we never never shall join them more."
From such ravings as these, he would suddenly become collected, and withunexaggerated but terrific words, paint the horrors of the time; describewith minute detail, the effects of the plague on the human frame, and tellheart-breaking tales of the snapping of dear affinities--the gaspinghorror of despair over the death-bed of the last beloved--so that groansand even shrieks burst from the crowd. One man in particular stood infront, his eyes fixt on the prophet, his mouth open, his limbs rigid, whilehis face changed to various colours, yellow, blue, and green, throughintense fear. The maniac caught his glance, and turned his eye on him--one has heard of the gaze of the rattle-snake, which allures the tremblingvictim till he falls within his jaws. The maniac became composed; hisperson rose higher; authority beamed from his countenance. He looked on thepeasant, who began to tremble, while he still gazed; his knees knockedtogether; his teeth chattered. He at last fell down in convulsions. "Thatman has the plague," said the maniac calmly. A shriek burst from the lipsof the poor wretch; and then sudden motionlessness came over him; it wasmanifest to all that he was dead.
Cries of horror filled the place--every one endeavoured to effect hisescape--in a few minutes the market place was cleared--the corpse layon the ground; and the maniac, subdued and exhausted, sat beside it,leaning his gaunt cheek upon his thin hand. Soon some people, deputed bythe magistrates, came to remove the body; the unfortunate being saw ajailor in each--he fled precipitately, while I passed onwards to theCastle.
Death, cruel and relentless, had entered these beloved walls. An oldservant, who had nursed Idris in infancy, and who lived with us more on thefooting of a revered relative than a domestic, had gone a few days beforeto visit a daughter, married, and settled in the neighbourhood of London.On the night of her return she sickened of the plague. From the haughty andunbending nature of the Countess of Windsor, Idris had few tender filialassociations with her. This good woman had stood in the place of a mother,and her very deficiencies of education and knowledge, by rendering herhumble and defenceless, endeared her to us--she was the e
specialfavourite of the children. I found my poor girl, there is no exaggerationin the expression, wild with grief and dread. She hung over the patient inagony, which was not mitigated when her thoughts wandered towards herbabes, for whom she feared infection. My arrival was like the newlydiscovered lamp of a lighthouse to sailors, who are weathering somedangerous point. She deposited her appalling doubts in my hands; she reliedon my judgment, and was comforted by my participation in her sorrow. Soonour poor nurse expired; and the anguish of suspense was changed to deepregret, which though at first more painful, yet yielded with greaterreadiness to my consolations. Sleep, the sovereign balm, at length steepedher tearful eyes in forgetfulness.
She slept; and quiet prevailed in the Castle, whose inhabitants were hushedto repose. I was awake, and during the long hours of dead night, my busythoughts worked in my brain, like ten thousand mill-wheels, rapid, acute,untameable. All slept--all England slept; and from my window, commandinga wide prospect of the star-illumined country, I saw the land stretched outin placid rest. I was awake, alive, while the brother of death possessed myrace. What, if the more potent of these fraternal deities should obtaindominion over it? The silence of midnight, to speak truly, thoughapparently a paradox, rung in my ears. The solitude became intolerable--Iplaced my hand on the beating heart of Idris, I bent my head to catch thesound of her breath, to assure myself that she still existed--for amoment I doubted whether I should not awake her; so effeminate an horrorran through my frame.--Great God! would it one day be thus? One day allextinct, save myself, should I walk the earth alone? Were these warningvoices, whose inarticulate and oracular sense forced belief upon me?
Yet I would not call them Voices of warning, that announce to us Only the inevitable. As the sun, Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere--so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow.[2]
[1] Calderon de la Barca.[2] Coleridge's Translation of Schiller's Wallenstein.