第 42 页

he did for me, and for other reasons, I would fain know as much as I

can of him.' So then I told him about how you found out about the

robbery and saved master from being ruined, and how you prevented

Miss Nellie from going off with a rascal who pretended he was an

earl."

"Then you did very wrong, John," Cyril said angrily. "I say naught

about your speaking about the robbery, for that was told in open

Court, but you ought not, on any account, to have said a word about

Mistress Nellie's affairs."

"Well, your honour, I doubt not Mistress Nellie herself would have

told the gentleman had she been in my place. I am sure he can be

trusted not to let it go further. I took care to tell him what good

it had done Mistress Nellie, and that good had come out of evil."

"Well, you ought not to have said anything about it, John. It may be

that Mistress Nellie out of her goodness of heart might herself have

told, but that is no reason why anyone else should do so. I charge

you in future never to open your lips about that to anyone, no matter

who. I say not that any harm will come of it in this case, for Mr.

Harvey is indeed a sober and God-fearing man, and assuredly asked

only because he felt an interest in me, and from no idle curiosity.

Still, I would rather that he had not known of a matter touching the

honour of Mistress Nellie."

"Mum's the word in future, Master Cyril. I will keep the hatches fast

down on my tongue. Now I will push your bed up near the window as the

doctor ordered, and then I hope you will get a good long sleep."

The Plague and the process by which it had been expelled had left

Cyril so weak that it was some days before he could walk across the

room. Every morning he inquired anxiously of John how he felt, and

the answer was always satisfactory. John had never been better in his

life; therefore, by the time Cyril was able to walk to his easy-chair

by the window, he began to hope that John had escaped the infection,

which generally declared itself within a day or two, and often within

a few hours, of the first outbreak in a house.

A week later the doctor, who paid him a flying visit every two or

three days, gave him the welcome news that he had ordered the red

cross to be removed from the door, and the watchmen to cease their

attendance, as the house might now be considered altogether free from

infection.

The Plague continued its ravages with but slight abatement, moving

gradually eastward, and Aldgate and the district lying east of the

walls were now suffering terribly. It was nearly the end of September

before Cyril was strong enough to go out for his first walk. Since

the beginning of August some fifty thousand people had been carried

off, so that the streets were now almost entirely deserted, and in

many places the grass was shooting up thickly in the road. In some

streets every house bore the sign of a red cross, and the tolling of

the bells of the dead-carts and piteous cries and lamentations were

the only sounds that broke the strange silence.

The scene was so disheartening that Cyril did not leave the house

again for another fortnight. His first visit was to Mr. Wallace. The

sight of a watchman at the door gave him quite a shock, and he was

grieved indeed when he heard from the man that the brave minister had

died a fortnight before. Then he went to Mr. Harvey's. There was no

mark on the door, but his repeated knockings met with no response,

and a woman, looking out from a window opposite, called to him that

the house had been empty for well-nigh a month, and the people that

were in it had gone off in a cart, she supposed into the country.

"There was a gentleman and lady," she said, "who seemed well enough,

and their servant, who was carried down and placed in the cart. It

could not have been the Plague, though the man looked as if he had

been sorely ill."

The next day he called on Dr. Hodges, who had not been near him for

the last month. There was no watchman at the door, and his man opened

it.

"Can I see the doctor?"

"Ay, you can see him," he said; "he is cured now, and will soon be

about again."

"Has he had the Plague, then?"

"That he has, but it is a week now since the watchman left."

Cyril went upstairs. The doctor was sitting, looking pale and thin,

by the window.

"I am grieved indeed to hear that you have been ill, doctor," Cyril

said; "had I known it I should have come a fortnight since, for I was

strong enough to walk this distance then. I did indeed go out, but

the streets had so sad an aspect that I shrank from stirring out

again."

"Yes, I have had it," the doctor said. "Directly I felt it come on I

followed your system exactly, but it had gone further with me than it

had with you, and it was a week before I fairly drove the enemy out.

I ordered sweating in every case, but, as you know, they seldom sent

for me until too late, and it is rare that the system got a fair

chance. However, in my case it was a complete success. Two of my

servants died; they were taken when I was at my worst. Both were dead

before I was told of it. The man you saw was the one who waited on

me, and as I adopted all the same precautions you had taken with your

man, he did not catch it, and it was only when he went downstairs one

day and found the other two servants lying dead in the kitchen that

he knew they had been ill."

"Mr. Wallace has gone, you will be sorry to hear, sir."

"I am sorry," the doctor said; "but no one was more fitted to die. He

was a brave man and a true Christian, but he ran too many risks, and

your news does not surprise me."

"The only other friends I have, Mr. Harvey and his wife, went out of

town a month ago, taking with them their servant."

"Yes; I saw them the day before I was taken ill," the doctor said,

"and told them that the man was so far out of danger that he might

safely be moved. They seemed very interested in you, and were very

pleased when I told them that I had now given up attending you, and

that you were able to walk across the room, and would, erelong, be

yourself again. I hope we are getting to the end of it now, lad. As

the Plague travels East it abates in the West, and the returns for

the last week show a distinct fall in the rate of mortality. There is

no further East for it to go now, and I hope that in another few

weeks it will have worn itself out. We are half through October, and

may look for cold weather before long."

"I should think that I am strong enough to be useful again now, sir."

"I don't think you are strong enough, and I am sure I shall not give

you leave to do so," the doctor said. "I can hardly say how far a

first attack is a protection against a second, for the recoveries

have been so few that we have scarce means of knowing, but there

certainly have been cases where persons have recovered from a first

attack and died from a second. Your treatment is too severe to be

gone through twice, and it is, therefore, more essential that you

should run no risk of infection than it was before. I can see that

you are still very far from strong, and your duty now is, in the

first place, to regain your health. I should say get on board a hoy

and go to Yarmouth. A week in the bracing air there would do you more

good than six months here. But it is useless to give you that advice,

because, in the first place, no shipping comes up the river, and,

even if you could get down to Yarmouth by road, no one would receive

you. Still, that is what I should do myself as soon as I could get

away, were it not that, in my case, I have my duties here."

"But, doctor, what you said to me surely applies to yourself also?"

Cyril said, with a smile.

"I know that," the doctor said good-humouredly, "and expected it, but

it is not for a doctor to choose. He is not free, like other men; he

has adopted a vocation in which it is his first duty to go among the

sick, whatever their ailment may be, to do all that he can for them,

and if, as in the present case, he can do practically nothing else,

to set them an example of calmness and fearlessness. Still, for a

time, at any rate, I shall be able to go no more into houses where

the Plague is raging. 'Tis more than a month since you were cured,

yet you are still a mere shadow of what you were. I had a much harder

fight with the enemy, and cannot walk across the room yet without

William's help. Therefore, it will be a fortnight or three weeks yet

before I can see patients, and much longer before I shall have

strength to visit them in their houses. By that time I trust that the

Plague will have very greatly abated. Thus, you see, I shall not be

called upon to stand face to face with it for some time. Those who

call upon me here are seldom Plague-stricken. They come for other

ailments, or because they feel unwell, and are nervous lest it should

be the beginning of an attack; but of late I have had very few come

here. My patients are mostly of the middle class, and these have

either fled or fallen victims to the Plague, or have shut themselves

up in their houses like fortresses, and nothing would tempt them to

issue abroad. Therefore, I expect that I shall have naught to do but

to gain strength again. Come here when you will, lad, and the oftener

the better. Conversation is the best medicine for both of us, and as

soon as I can I will visit you. I doubt not that John Wilkes has many

a story of the sea that will take our thoughts away from this sad

city. Bring him with you sometimes; he is an honest fellow, and the

talk of sailors so smacks of the sea that it seems almost to act as a

tonic."

Cyril stayed for an hour, and promised to return on the following

evening. He said, however, that he was sure John Wilkes would not

accompany him.

"He never leaves the house unless I am in it. He considers himself on

duty; and although, as I tell him, there is little fear of anyone

breaking in, seeing how many houses with much more valuable and more

portable goods are empty and deserted, he holds to his purpose,

saying that, even with the house altogether empty, it would be just

as much his duty to remain in charge."

"Well, come yourself, Cyril. If we cannot get this old watch-dog out

I must wait until I can go to him."

"I shall be very glad to come, doctor, for time hangs heavily on my

hands. John Wilkes spends hours every day in washing and scrubbing

decks, as he calls it, and there are but few books in the house."

"As to that, I can furnish you, and will do so gladly. Go across to

the shelves there, and choose for yourself."

"Thank you very much indeed, sir. But will you kindly choose for me?

I have read but few English books, for of course in France my reading

was entirely French."

"Then take Shakespeare. I hold his writings to be the finest in our

tongue. I know them nearly by heart, for there is scarce an evening

when I do not take him down for an hour, and reading him I forget the

worries and cares of my day's work, which would otherwise often keep

me from sleep. 'Tis a bulky volume, but do not let that discourage

you; it is full of wit and wisdom, and of such romance that you will

often find it hard to lay it down. Stay--I have two editions, and can

well spare one of them, so take the one on that upper shelf, and keep

it when you have read it. There is but little difference between

them, but I generally use the other, and have come to look upon it as

a friend."

"Nay, sir, I will take it as a loan."

"You will do nothing of the sort. I owe you a fee, and a bumping

one."

Henceforth Cyril did not find his time hang heavy on his hands. It

seemed to him, as he sat at the window and read, that a new world

opened to him. His life had been an eminently practical one. He had

studied hard in France, and when he laid his books aside his time had

been spent in the open air. It was only since he had been with

Captain Dave that he had ever read for amusement, and the Captain's

library consisted only of a few books of travels and voyages. He had

never so much as dreamt of a book like this, and for the next few

days he devoured its pages.

"You are not looking so well, Cyril," Dr. Hodges said to him abruptly

one day.

"I am doing nothing but reading Shakespeare, doctor."

"Then you are doing wrong, lad. You will never build yourself up

unless you take exercise."

"The streets are so melancholy, doctor, and whenever I go out I

return sick at heart and in low spirits."

"That I can understand, lad. But we must think of something," and he

sat for a minute or two in silence. Then he said suddenly, "Do you

understand the management of a boat?"

"Yes, doctor; it was my greatest pleasure at Dunkirk to be out with

the fishermen."

"That will do, then. Go down at once to the riverside. There are

hundreds of boats lying idle there, for there are no passengers and

no trade, and half of their owners are dead. You are sure to see some

men there; having nothing else to do, some will be hanging about. Say

you want to hire a boat for a couple of months or to buy one. You

will probably get one for a few shillings. Get one with a sail as

well as oars. Go out the first thing after breakfast, and go up or

down the river as the tide or wind may suit. Take some bread and meat

with you, and don't return till supper-time. Then you can spend your

evenings with Shakespeare. Maybe I myself will come down and take a

sail with you sometimes. That will bring the colour back into your

cheeks, and make a new man of you. Would that I had thought of it

before!"

Cyril was delighted with the idea, and, going down to Blackfriars,

bought a wherry with a sail for a pound. Its owner was dead, but he