A Tale of the Plague and the Fire by William Harrison Ainsworth (smart books to read txt) 📕

their meeting were over, and then advanced slowly towards them.

"Whose footsteps are those?" inquired the piper.

Nizza explained.

"Ah, is it Leonard Holt?" exclaimed the piper, extending his hand to the apprentice. "You are heartily welcome," he added; "and I am glad to find you with Nizza. It is no secret to me that she likes you. She has been an excellent daughter, and will make an excellent wife. He who weds her will obtain a greater treasure than he expects."

"Not than he expects," said Leonard.

"Ay, than he expects," reiterated the piper. "You will one day find out that I speak the truth."

Leonard looked at Nizza, who was blushing deeply at her father's remark. She understood him.

"Father," she said, "I understand you have a secret of importance to disclose to me. I am about to make a long journey to-morrow, and may not return for some time. At this uncertain season, when those who part know not that they shall meet again, nothing of this sort ought to be withheld."

"You cannot know it while I live," replied the piper, "but I will take such precautions that, if anything happens to me, it shall be certainly revealed to you."

"I am satisfied," she rejoined, "and will only ask you one farther question, and I beseech you to answer it. Does this amulet refer to the secret?"

"It does," replied her father, sullenly; "and now let the subject be dropped."

He then led the way into the cottage. The good old dame who kept it, on learning who they were, and that they were sent by Doctor Hodges, gave them a hearty welcome, and placed refreshments before them. Leonard commented upon the extreme neatness of the abode and its healthful situation, and expressed a hope that it might not be visited by the plague.

"I trust it will not," rejoined the old woman, shaking her head; "but when I hear the doleful bell at night--when I catch a glimpse of the fatal cart--or look towards yon dreadful place," and she pointed in the direction of the plague-pit, which lay only a few hundred yards to the west of her habitation--"I am reminded that the scourge is not far off, and that it must needs reach me ere long."

"Have no fear, Dame Lucas," said the piper; "you see it has pleased a merciful Providence to spare the lives of myself, my child, and this young man, and if you should be attacked, the same benificent Being may preserve you in like manner."

"The Lord's will be done!" rejoined Dame Lucas. "I know I shall be well attended to by Doctor Hodges. I nursed him when he was an infant, and he has been like a son to me. Bless his kind heart!" she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears of gratitude, "there is not his like in London."

"Always excepting my master," observed Leonard, with a smile at her enthusiasm.

"I except no one," rejoined Dame Lucas. "A worthier man never lived, than Doctor Hodges. If I die of the plague," she continued, "he has promised not to let me be thrown into that horrible pit--ough!--but to bury me in my garden, beneath the old apple-tree."

"And he will keep his word, dame, I am sure," replied Leonard. "I would recommend you, however, as the best antidote against the plague, to keep yourself constantly employed, and to indulge as few gloomy notions as possible."

"I am seldom melancholy, and still more seldom idle," replied the good dame. "But despondency will steal on me sometimes, especially when the dead-cart passes and I think what it contains."

While the conversation was going forward, Nizza and the piper withdrew into an inner room, where they remained closeted together for some time. On their re-appearance, Nizza said she was ready to depart, and taking an affectionate farewell of her father, and committing Bell to his charge, she quitted the cottage with the apprentice.

Evening was now advancing, and the sun was setting with the gorgeousness already described as peculiar to this fatal period. Filled with the pleasing melancholy inspired by the hour, they walked on in silence. They had not proceeded far, when they observed a man crossing the field with a bundle in his arms. Suddenly, he staggered and fell. Seeing he did not stir, and guessing what was the matter, Leonard ran towards him to offer him assistance. He found him lying in the grass with his left hand fixed against his heart. He groaned heavily, and his features were convulsed with pain. Near him lay the body of a beautiful little girl, with long fair hair, and finely-formed features, though now disfigured by purple blotches, proclaiming the disorder of which she had perished. She was apparently about ten years old, and was partially covered by a linen cloth. The man, whose features bore a marked resemblance to those of the child, was evidently from his attire above the middle rank. His frame was athletic, and as he was scarcely past the prime of life, the irresistible power of the disease, which could in one instant prostrate strength like his, was terribly attested.

"Alas!" he cried, addressing the apprentice, "I was about to convey the remains of my poor child to the plague-pit. But I have been unable to accomplish my purpose. I hoped she would have escaped the polluting touch of those loathly attendants on the dead-cart."

"She shall escape it," replied Leonard; "if you wish it, I will carry her to the pit myself."

"The blessing of a dying man rest on your head," cried the sufferer; "your charitable action will not pass unrequited."

With this, despite the agony he endured, he dragged himself to his child, kissed her cold lips, smoothed her fair tresses, and covered the body carefully with the cloth. He then delivered it to Leonard, who received it tenderly, and calling to Nizza Macascree, who had witnessed the scene at a little distance, and was deeply affected by it, to await his return, ran towards the plague-pit. Arrived there, he placed his little burden at the brink of the excavation, and, kneeling beside it, uttered a short prayer inspired by the occasion. He then tore his handkerchief into strips, and tying them together, lowered the body gently down. Throwing a little earth over it, he hastened to the sick man, and told him what he had done. A smile of satisfaction illumined the sufferer's countenance, and holding out his hand, on which a valuable ring glistened, he said, "Take it--it is but a poor reward for the service you have rendered me;--nay, take it," he added, seeing that the apprentice hesitated; "others will not be so scrupulous."

Unable to gainsay the remark, Leonard took the ring from his finger and placed it on his own. At this moment, the sick man's gaze fell upon Nizza, who stood at a little distance from him. He started, and made an effort to clear his vision.

"Do my eyes deceive me?" he cried, "or is a female standing there?"

"You are not deceived," replied Leonard.

"Let her come near me, in Heaven's name!" cried the sick man, staring at her as if his eyes would start from their sockets. "Who are you?" he continued, as Nizza approached.

"I am called Nizza Macascree, and am the daughter of a poor piper," she replied.

"Ah!" exclaimed the sick man, with a look of deep disappointment. "The resemblance is wonderful! And yet it cannot be. My brain is bewildered."

"Whom does she resemble?" asked Leonard, eagerly.

"One very dear to me," replied the sick man, with an expression of remorse and anguish, "one I would not think of now." And he buried his face in the grass.

"Is there aught more I can do for you?" inquired Leonard, after a pause.

"No," replied the sick man; "I have done with the world. With that child, the last tie that bound me to it was snapped. I now only wish to die."

"Do not give way thus," replied Leonard; "a short time ago my condition was as apparently hopeless as your own, and you see I am now perfectly recovered."

"You had something to live for--something to love," groaned the sick man. "All I lived for, all I loved, are gone."

"Be comforted, sir," said Nizza, in a commiserating tone. "Much happiness may yet be in store for you."

"That voice!" exclaimed the sick man, with a look denoting the approach of delirium. "It must be my Isabella. Oh! forgive me! sweet injured saint; forgive me!"

"Your presence evidently distresses him," said Leonard. "Let us hasten for assistance. Your name, sir?" he added, to the sick man.

"Why should you seek to know it?" replied the other. "No tombstone will be placed over the plague-pit."

"Not a moment must be lost if you would save him," cried Nizza.

"You are right," replied Leonard. "Let us fly to the nearest apothecary's."

Accordingly, they set off at a quick pace towards Moorgate. Just as they reached it, they heard the bell ring, and saw the dead-cart approaching. Shrinking back while it passed, they ran on till they came to an apothecary's shop, where Leonard, describing the state of the sick man, by his entreaties induced the master of the establishment and one of his assistants to accompany him. Leaving Nizza in the shop, he then retraced his steps with his companions. The sick man was lying where he had left him, but perfectly insensible. On searching his pockets, a purse of money was found, but neither letter nor tablet to tell who he was. Leonard offered the purse to the apothecary, but the latter declined it, and desired his assistant, who had brought a barrow with him, to place the sick man within it, and convey him to the pest-house.

"He will be better cared for there than if I were to take charge of him," he observed. "As to the money, you can return it if he recovers. If not, it of right belongs to you."

Seeing that remonstrance would be useless, Leonard did not attempt it, and while the assistant wheeled away the sick man, he returned with the apothecary to his dwelling. Thanking him for his kindness, he then hastened with Nizza Macascree to Great Knightrider-street. He related to the doctor all that had occurred, and showed him the ring. Hodges listened to the recital with great attention, and at its close said, "This is a very singular affair, and excites my curiosity greatly. I will go to the pest-house and see the sick man to-morrow. And now we will proceed to supper; and then you had better retire to rest, for you will have to be astir before daybreak. All is in readiness for the journey."

The last night (for such she considered it) spent by Amabel in her father's dwelling, was passed in the kindliest interchanges of affection. Mr. Bloundel had much ado to maintain his firmness, and ever and anon, in spite of his efforts, his labouring bosom and faltering tones proclaimed the struggle within. He sat beside his daughter, with her thin fingers clasped in his, and spoke to her on every consolatory topic that suggested itself. This discourse, however, insensibly took a serious turn, and the grocer became fully convinced that his daughter was not merely reconciled to the early death that to all appearance awaited her, but wishful for it. He found, too, to his inexpressible grief, that the sense of the Earl of Rochester's treachery, combined with her own indiscretion, and the consequences that might have attended it, had sunk deep in her