CHAPTER VII.

"It is the business of a gentleman to be hospitable, following those noblo gentlemen Abraham and Lot. It is his business to maintain peace, whereto he hath that brave gentleman, Moses, recommended for his pattern. It is his business to promote the welfare and prosperity of his country with his best endeavors, and with all his interest; in which practice the Sacred History doth propound divers gallant gentlemen (Joseph, Moses, Nehemiah, and all such renowned patriots), to guide him."—Barrow.

SIR PHILIP DACRE was of a class uncommon in those times. His father, whom report called a weak and ordinary man, with only the one gift of personal courage to distinguish him—-and it scarcely did distinguish him among the host of cavaliers, whose sole standing-ground was this same gift of bravery-had fought his last at Worcester. Philip, a studious boy, dwelling alone in his earlier youth in the old, dark library at Thornleigh, and finally sent to spend long solitary years in Oxford, a stranger to all home or family enjoyments, had grown up a grave, imaginative student, with a sound and strong intellect, which rejoiced scarce less in those mighty things which Newton had but lately brought forth from the great ocean of the unknown, than in those wonderful human folk, with whom the poets. of Elizabeth's golden time had peopled many countries. He was of the class (scarce so courtly perhaps as the quaint olden gentleman, who has put it on record, that the

history of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was not sufficiently refined for the Court of Charles) of Evelyn, and his brother philosophers; not devoted to any one especial science, but with lively interest in, and considerable knowledge of them all-a youthful neophyte, who had not quite penetrated into the charmed circle of the juvenile Royal Society, then being formed; but who hung with eager curiosity and interest in its outer round. His travels in the simple North, and his late visit to Scotland, had given the Oxford scholar a strong leaning to the persecuted Presbyterians; and having had enshrined in his remembrance all his days, the object of his boyish sympathy and tears, the gentle memory of the young wife of Caleb Field, her story threw a charm over her people, and her faith, counteracting the prejudices in which he had been bred, and shining with a steady light round the stout head of the husband, who had mourned for her so truly. From which causes it resulted that Sir Philip Dacre, kept in London by the bold hardihood and temerity of his mother, chose to put himself under the guidance of the Puritan. As a youth he had, in youthful curiosity, advanced some considerable way in the study of medicine. Master Field's steady friend, Dr. Newton, when it was found impossible to induce the young man to leave London, made some use of his willing services; for the office of physician was an office of strenuous never-ceasing labor in those perilous times.

The terrible days went on; the plague grew round them, spreading like wild-fire. Phoebe Turner, and three of her sisters, were laid in the indiscriminate grave, which was all now that could be given to the victims of the pest

ilence. The old, fatuous, broken-hearted father, and the faded, despairing elder sister, were all that remained of the household. Dorothy, sad and calm, and outwardly unmurmuring, had become a nurse, and going from deathbed to death-bed in stern impunity, earned bread for the helpless old man, at peril of her life. Other households in Hampstead had rendered the best-beloved to that dread enemy. Other houses had been emptied of their inhabitants by his stroke; the red mark of his presence was already upon many dwellings.

But Edith's heart did not fail. Strong in her girlish devotion, she remembered not the danger, for pity of those hosts of dying, suffering poor, who, utterly broken down with want and terror, lay helpless and hopeless, waiting for the plague. Many of them already, like Ralph Tennison, were earning a weekly pittance at deadly risk, as watchmen of infected houses; but many more received from her constant ministrations their principal sustenance. The good citizen, Godliman, himself afraid to peril his life in the vicinity of the contagion, sent his gold liberally for their relief, little knowing that the administrator was a delicate girl; and many other such benefactors there were, and other such almoners. No longer food only, but medical attendance, the service of nurses, medicines; all these Edith had to provide for. She entered few houses; she used all the ordinary means of prevention, and so her daily labors had yet produced no evil effect.

She was seated in her chamber one evening, preparing to retire to rest, when that month of June was drawing to a close. Mercy, lying on her little pallet near her, was looking up to her with youthful admiration, and some E

slight tinge of fear. The soft, full moonlight streamed through the latticed window; the whole world lay silvered in it, at peace and very still.

The wheels of some heavy vehicle, solemn and slow, were passing along the deserted road; then the clear echoes gave forth the hoarse tinkling of a bell. The silvery night-air seemed to soften it; yet the two girls in their quiet chamber shrank and trembled, and looked fearfully, in silent terror, into each other's faces.

Then there followed a voice, inarticulate in the distance. Alas! they knew too well what those terrible words would be. The sound came nearer-nearer; and Mercy started from her bed, and throwing herself at Edith's feet, clasped her arms round her in the convulsive dependence of fear, as the voice rang sharp into the silent house: "Bring forth your dead !”

A monotonous usual cry to which the men had become terribly familiar, forgetting its horror-the sign of their sad vocation. It was the first time it had been heard in Hampstead, and the calamity was now fully come.

Preaching day by day, fervent, untiring, strong, laboring in concert with his daughter in her mission of charity, venturing to speak comfort to the stricken at their very death-beds, the Puritan minister of Hampstead rested not, night nor day. And thus it advanced, by gradual degrees, and raged upon every side around them, while from the eastern quarters of the city, tidings came quick and frequent, of parish after parish smitten; now here, now there, marching on, resistless and omnipotent, breaking the feeble barriers set up to restrain it; cutting down, in dread rapidity, its thousands in a night, until at last the

maddened people threw off all the restraints of prudence, and going about in a wild despair, more terrible than their former fears, proclaimed the blind confidence they had in the final extermination of all life from London. It was but a question of time, they said. Churches which had been shut when the pestilence reached to so fearful a height that men could not stir abroad without the deadliest peril, were opened again, and crowded with solemn congregations fearlessly despairing. The same spirit, in a less profane degree, came upon the two devoted faculties -physicians and clergymen. They began to have no hope-scarcely any expectation of surviving, and the great matter with them was, how to accomplish the most labor before the call should come.

But, if all his brethren were bold and unwearying, the preacher, Vincent, was inspired. With the desperate energy and daring of a doomed man, he labored. No case so terrible that he refused to visit it; no sinful dying man so dangerous, but he would carry him those burning, living words, which could come from no lips but those of one who himself stood upon the very brink, and was conversant with the Powers of the world to come. Praying only to be taken last, that he might labor to the end, he preached, and prayed, and exhorted, through well-nigh every hour of those long days of summer; in the churches, in the streets, wherever men would pause to listen, the overwhelming torrent of his earnestness poured itself forth —impetuous, vivid, bold—the apostle of the time.

Less known, and less observed, his neighbor, Master Franklin, labored with stubborn Saxon perseverance, and an obstinacy of purpose altogether his own. The afflatus