Old Saint Paul's: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire by William Harrison Ainsworth (recommended books to read .TXT) 📕

More than two months must be passed over in silence. During that time, the pestilence had so greatly abated as no longer to occasion alarm to those who had escaped its ravages. It has been mentioned that the distemper arrived at its height about the 10th of September, and though for the two following weeks the decline was scarcely perceptible, yet it had already commenced. On the last week in that fatal month, when all hope had been abandoned, the bills of mortality suddenly decreased in number to one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four. And this fortunate change could not be attributed to the want of materials to act upon, for the sick continued as numerous as before, while the deaths were less frequent. In the next week there was a further decrease of six hundred; in the next after that of six hundred; and so on till the end of October, when, the cold weather setting in, the amount was reduced to nearly one thousand.

At first, when the distemper began to lose somewhat of its malignancy, a few scared individuals appeared in the streets, but carefully shunned each other. In a few days, however, considerable numbers joined them, and for the first time for nearly three months there was something like life abroad. It is astonishing how soon hope and confidence are revived. Now that it could no longer be doubted that the plague was on the decline, it seemed as if a miracle had been performed in favour of the city. Houses were opened—shopkeepers resumed their business—and it was a marvel to every one that so many persons were left alive. Dejection and despair of the darkest kind were succeeded by frenzied delight, and no bound was put to the public satisfaction. Strangers stopped each other in the streets, and conversed together like old friends. The bells, that had grown hoarse with tolling funerals, were now cracked with joyous peals. The general joy extended even to the sick, and many, buoyed up by hope, recovered, when in the former season of despondency they would inevitably have perished. All fear of the plague seemed to vanish with the flying disorder. Those who were scarcely out of danger joined in the throng, and it was no uncommon sight to see men with bandages round their necks, or supported by staves and crutches, shaking hands with their friends, and even embracing them.

The consequence of this incautious conduct may be easily foreseen. The plague had received too severe a check to burst forth anew; but it spread further than it otherwise would have done, and attacked many persons, who but for their own imprudence would have escaped. Amongst others, a barber in Saint Martin's-le-Grand, who had fled into the country in August, returned to his shop in the middle of October, and, catching the disorder from one of his customers, perished with the whole of his family.

But these, and several other equally fatal instances, produced no effect on the multitude. Fully persuaded that the virulence of the disorder was exhausted—as, indeed, appeared to be the case—they gave free scope to their satisfaction, which was greater than was ever experienced by the inhabitants of a besieged city reduced by famine to the last strait of despair, and suddenly restored to freedom and plenty. The more pious part of the community thronged to the churches, from which they had been so long absent, and returned thanks for their unexpected deliverance. Others, who had been terrified into seriousness and devotion, speedily forgot their former terrors, and resumed their old habits. Profaneness and debauchery again prevailed, and the taverns were as well filled as the churches. Solomon Eagle continued his midnight courses through the streets; but he could no longer find an audience as before. Those who listened to him only laughed at his denunciations of a new judgment, and told him his preachings and prophesyings were now completely out of date.

By this time numbers of those who had quitted London having returned to it, the streets began to resume their wonted appearance. The utmost care was taken by the authorities to cleanse and purify the houses, in order to remove all chance of keeping alive the infection. Every room in every habitation where a person had died of the plague—and there were few that had escaped the visitation—was ordered to be whitewashed, and the strongest fumigations were employed to remove the pestilential effluvia. Brimstone, resin, and pitch were burnt in the houses of the poor; benjamin, myrrh, and other more expensive perfumes in those of the rich; while vast quantities of powder were consumed in creating blasts to carry off the foul air. Large and constant fires were kept in all the houses, and several were burnt down in consequence of the negligence of their owners.

All goods, clothes, and bedding, capable of harbouring infection, were condemned to be publicly burned, and vast bonfires were lighted in Finsbury Fields and elsewhere, into which many hundred cart-loads of such articles were thrown. The whole of Chowles's hoard, except the plate, which he managed, with Judith's aid, to carry off and conceal in certain hiding-places in the vaults of Saint Faith's, was taken from the house in Nicholas-lane, and cast into the fire.

The cathedral was one of the first places ordered to be purified. The pallets of the sick were removed and burned, and all the stains and impurities with which its floor