In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince

by Evelyn Everett-Green

  CHAPTER XVIII. WITH FATHER PAUL.

  All that evening and far into the night Raymond worked with the Brothersunder Father Paul, bringing in the sick, burying the dead, and tendingall those for whom anything could be done to mitigate their sufferings,or bring peace either of body or mind.

  By nightfall the ghastly assemblage about the Monastery doors haddisappeared. The living were lying in rows in the narrow beds, or uponthe straw pallets of the Brothers, filling dormitories and Refectoryalike; the dead had been laid side by side in a deep trench which hadbeen hastily dug by order of Father Paul; and after he had read overthem the burial service, earth and lime had been heaped upon the bodies,and one end of the long trench filled in. Before morning there were ascore more corpses to carry forth, and out of the thirty and oddstricken souls who lay within the walls, probably scarce ten wouldrecover from the malady.

  But no more of the sick appeared round and about the Monastery gates asthey had been doing for the past three days; and when Raymond asked whythis was so, Father Paul looked into his face with a keen, searchingglance as he replied:

  "Verily, my son, it is because there be no more to come -- no more whohave strength to drag themselves out hither. Tomorrow I go forth tovisit the villages where the sick be dying like beasts in the shambles.I go to shrive and confess the sick, to administer the last rites to thedying, to read the prayers of the Church over those who are beingcarried to the great common grave. God alone knows whether even now theliving may suffice to bury the dead. But where the need is sorest, theremust His faithful servants be found."

  Raymond looked back with a face full of resolute purpose.

  "Father, take me with thee," he said.

  Father Paul looked earnestly into that fair young face, that was growingso intensely spiritual in its expression, and asked one question.

  "My son, and if it should be going to thy death?"

  "I will go with thee, Father Paul, be it for life or for death."

  "God bless and protect thee, my son!" said the Father. "I verily believethat thou art one over whom the Blessed Saints and the Holy Angels keepwatch and ward, and that thou wilt pass unscathed even through this timeof desolation and death."

  Raymond had bent his knee to receive the Father's blessing, and when herose he saw that Roger was close behind him, likewise kneeling; andreading the thought in his mind, he said to the Father:

  "Wilt thou not give him thy blessing also? for I know that he too willgo with us and face the peril, be it for life or death."

  Father Paul laid his hand upon the head of the second lad.

  "May God's blessing rest also upon thee, my son," he said. "In days pastthou hast been used as an instrument of evil, and hast been forced to dothe devil's own work. Now God, in His mercy, has given thee work to dofor Him, whereby thou mayest in some sort make atonement for the past,and show by thy faith and piety that thou art no longer a bondservantunto sin."

  Then turning to both the youths as they stood before him, the Fatheradded, in a different and less solemn tone:

  "And since your purpose is to go forth with me tomorrow, you must nowtake some of that rest without which youthful frames cannot longdispense. Since early dawn you have been travelling and working at tasksof a nature to which you are little used. Come with me, therefore, andpass the remaining hours of the night in sleep. I will arouse you forour office of early mass, and then we will forth together. Till thensleep fearlessly and well. Sleep will best fit you for what you will seeand hear tomorrow."

  So saying, the Father led them into a narrow cell where a couple ofpallet beds had been placed, and where some slices of brown bread and apitcher of spring water were likewise standing.

  "Our fare is plain, but it is wholesome. Eat and drink, my sons, andsleep in peace. Wake not nor rise until I come to you again."

  The lads were indeed tired enough, though they had scarcely known it inthe strange excitement of the journey, and amid the terrible scenes ofdeath and sickness which they had witnessed around and about theMonastery doors since their arrival there. Now, however, that they hadreceived the command to rest and sleep (and to gainsay the Father'scommands was a thing that would never have entered their minds), theywere willing enough to obey, and had hardly laid themselves down beforethey fell into a deep slumber, from which neither awoke until the lightof day had long been shining upon the world, and the Father stood besidethem bidding them rise and follow him.

  In a few minutes their simple toilet and ablutions had been performed,and they made their way along the familiar passage to the chapel, fromwhence a low sound of chanting began to arise. There were not many ofthe Brothers present at the early service, most of them being engaged intending the plague-stricken guests beneath their roof. But the Fatherwas performing the office of the mass, and when he had himself partakenof the Sacrament, he signed to the two boys, who were about to go forthwith him into scenes of greater peril than any they had witnessedheretofore, to come and receive it likewise.

  The service over, and some simple refreshment partaken of, the youthsprepared for their day's toil, scarce knowing what they would be like tosee, but resolved to follow Father Paul wherever he went, anxious onlyto accomplish successfully such work as he should find for them to do.

  Each had a certain burden to carry with him -- some of the cordials thathad been found to give most relief in cases of utter collapse andexhaustion, a few simple medicaments and outward applications thought tobe of some use in allaying the pain of those terrible black swellingsfrom which the sickness took its significant name, and somesimply-prepared food for the sufferers, who were often like to perishfrom inanition even before the plague had done its worst. For strickenpersons, or those supposed to be stricken, were often turned out oftheir homes even by their nearest relatives, and forced to wander abouthomeless and starving, none taking pity upon their misery, until thepoison in their blood did its fatal work, and they dropped down to die.

  That loosening of the bands of nature and affection in times of deadlysickness has always been one of the most terrible features of theoutbreaks of the plague when it has visited either this or other lands.There are some forms of peril that bind men closer and closer together,and that bring into bond of friendship even those who have been beforeestranged; and terrible though these perils may be, there is always adeep sense of underlying consolation in the closer drawing of the bondof brotherhood. But when the scourge of deadly sickness has passed overthe land, the effect has almost always been to slacken this tie; theinherent love of life, natural to human beings, turning to an almostincredible selfishness, and inducing men to abandon their nearest anddearest in the hour of peril, leaving them, if stricken, to die alone,or turning them, sick to death though they might be, away from theirdoors, to perish untended and without shelter. True, there were manybright exceptions to such a code of barbarity, and devoted men and womenarose by the score to strive to ameliorate the condition of thesufferers; but for all that, one of the most terrible features of theperiod of death and desolation was that of the fearful panic iteverywhere produced, and the inhuman neglect and cruelty with which theearly sufferers were treated by the very persons who, perhaps only a fewdays or even hours later, had themselves caught the contagion, and werelying dead or dying in the homes from which they had ejected their ownkith and kin before.

  Of the fearful havoc wrought in England by this scourge of the BlackDeath many readers of history are scarcely aware. Whole districts wereactually and entirely depopulated, not a living creature of any kindbeing left sometimes within a radius of many miles; and at the lowestcomputation made by historians, it is believed that not less thanone-half of the entire population perished during the outbreak.

  But of anything like the magnitude of such a calamity no person at thistime had any conception, and little indeed was Raymond prepared for thesights that he was this day to look upon.

  The Father and his two assistants went forth after they had partaken offood, and turned their faces westwar
d.

  "There is a small village two miles hence that we will visit first,"said the Father, "for the poor people have no pastor or any other personto care for their bodies or souls, and I trow we shall find work to dothere. If time permits when we have done what we may there, we will passon to the little town round the church of St. Michael, whose spire yousee yonder on the hillside. Many of the stricken folks within our wallscame from thence. The sickness is raging there, and there may be fewhelpers left by now."

  The same sultry haze the travellers had noticed in the infected regionswas still hanging over the woods today as they sallied forth; and thoughthe sun was shining in the sky, its beams were thick and blood-redinstead of being clear and bright, and there was an oppression in theair which caused the birds to cease their song, and lay on the spiritlike a dead weight.

  "The curse of God upon the land -- the curse of God!" said the Father,in a low, solemn tone, as he led the way, bearing in his hands the HolySacrament with which to console the dying. "Men have long beenforgetting Him. But He will not alway be forgotten. He will arise injudgment and show men the error of their ways. If in their prosperitythey will not remember Him, He will call Himself to their remembrance bya terrible day of adversity. And who may stand before the Lord? Who mayabide the day of His visitation?"

  Moving along with these and like solemn words of warning and admonition,to which his followers paid all reverent heed, the woodland path wasquickly traversed, and the clearing reached which showed the nearapproach to the village. There was a break in the forest at this point,and some excellent pasture land and arable fields had tempted twofarmers to establish themselves here, a small hamlet growing quickly uparound the farmsteads. This small community supplied the Brothers withsome of the necessaries of life, and every soul there was known to theFather. Some dozen persons had come to the Monastery gates during thepast two days, stricken and destitute, and had been taken in there. Butall these had died and no others had followed, and Father Paul wasnaturally anxious to know how it fared with those left behind.

  Raymond and Roger both knew the villagers well. The two years spentwithin the walls of the Brotherhood had made them fully acquainted withthe people round about. The little hamlet was a pretty spot: a number oflow thatched cottages nestled together beside the stream that wateredthe meadows, whilst the larger farmsteads, which, however, were onlymodest dwelling houses with their barns and sheds forming a backgroundto them, stood a little farther back upon a slightly-rising ground,sheltered from the colder winds by a spur of the forest.

  Generally one was aware, in approaching the place, of the pleasanthomely sounds of life connected with farming. Today, with the goldengrain all ready for the reaper's hand, one looked to hear the sound ofthe sickle in the corn, and the voices of the labourers calling to eachother, or singing some rustic harvest song over their task. But insteadof that a deadly and death-like silence prevailed; and Raymond, who hadquickened his steps as he neared the familiar spot, now involuntarilypaused and hung back, as if half afraid of what he would be forced tolook upon when once the last turning was passed.

  But Father Paul moved steadily on, turning neither to the right hand norto the left. There was no hesitation or faltering in his step, and thetwo youths pressed after him, ashamed of their moment's backwardness.The sun had managed to pierce through the haze, and was shining now withsome of its wonted brilliancy. As Raymond turned the corner and sawbefore him the whole of the little hamlet, he almost wished the sun hadceased to shine, the contrast between the beauty and brightness ofnature and the scene upon which it looked being almost too fearful forendurance.

  Lying beside the river bank, in every attitude and contortion of thedeath agony, were some dozen prostrate forms of men, women, andchildren, all dead and still. It seemed as though they must have crawledforth from the houses when the terrible fever thirst was upon them, anddragging themselves down to the water's edge, had perished there. Andyet if all were dead, as indeed there could be small doubt from theirperfect stillness and rigidity, why did none come forth to bury them?Already the warm air was tainted and oppressive with thatplague-stricken odour so unspeakably deadly to the living. Why did notthe survivors come forth from their homes and bury the dead out of theirsight? Had all fled and left them to their fate?

  Father Paul walked calmly onwards, his eyes taking in every detail ofthe scene.

  As he reached the dead around the margin of the stream, he paused andlooked upon the faces he had known so well in life, then turning to histwo followers, he said:

  "I trow these be all dead corpses, but I will examine each if there beany spark of life remaining. Go ye into the houses, and if there be anysound persons within, bid them, in the name of humanity and their ownsafety, come forth and help to bury their brethren. If they are sufferedto lie here longer, every soul in this place will perish!"

  Glad enough to turn his eyes from the terrible sight without, Raymondhurried past to the cluster of dwelling places beyond, and entering thefirst of these himself, signed to Roger to go into the second. He hadsome slight difficulty in pushing open the door, not because it wasfastened, but owing to some encumbrance behind. When, however, hesucceeded in forcing his way in, he found that the encumbrance wasnothing more or less than the body of a woman lying dead along the floorof the tiny room. Upon a bed in the corner two children were lying,smiling as if in sleep, but both stiff and cold, the livid tokens of theterrible malady visible upon their little bodies, though the end seemedto have been painless. No other person was in the house, and Raymond,drawing a covering over the children as they lay, turned from the houseagain with a shudder of compassionate sorrow. Outside he met Rogercoming forth with a look of awe upon his face.

  "There be five souls within you door," he said -- "an old woman, her twosons and two daughters. But they are all dead and cold. I misdoubt me ifwe find one alive in the place."

  "We must try farther and see," answered Raymond, his face full of thewondering consternation of so terrible a discovery; and by mutualconsent they proceeded in their task together. There was something sounspeakably awful in going about alone in a veritable city of the dead.

  And such indeed might this place be called. Roger was fearfully right inhis prediction. Each house entered showed its number of victims to thedestroyer, but not one of these victims was living to receive comfort orhelp from the ministrations of those who had come amongst them. And notman alone had suffered; upon the dumb beasts too had the scourge fallen:for when Roger suddenly bethought him that the creatures would wanttendance in the absence of their owners, and had gone to the sheds toseek for them, nothing but death met his eye on all sides. Some in theirstalls, some in the open fields, some, like their masters, beside thestream, lay the poor beasts all stone dead.

  It seemed as if the scourge had fallen with peculiar virulence upon thislittle hamlet, in the warm cup-like hollow where it lay, and had smittenit root and branch. Possibly the waters of the stream had been poisonedhigher up, and the deadly malaria had reached it in that way; possiblysome condition of the atmosphere predisposed living things to take theinfection. But be the cause what it might, there was no gainsaying thefact. Not a living or breathing thing remained in the hamlet; and littleas Raymond knew it, such wholesale destruction was only too commonthroughout the length and breadth of England. But such a revelationcoming upon him suddenly, brought before his very eyes when he had comewith the desire to help and tend the living, filled him with an awe thatwas almost terror, although the terror was not for himself. Personallyhe had no fear; he had given himself to this work, and he would hold toit be the result what it might. But the thought of the scourge sweepingdown upon a peaceful hamlet, and carrying off in a few short days everybreathing thing within its limits, was indeed both terrible and pitiful.He could picture only too vividly the terror, the anguish, the agony ofthe poor helpless people, and longed, not to escape from such scenes,but rather to go forward to other places ere the work of destruction hadbeen accomplished, and be with the s
ick when the last call came. If hehad been but two days earlier in coming forward, might he not have beenin time to do a work of mercy and charity even here?

  But it was useless musing thus. To act, and not to think, was now theorder of the day. He went slowly out from the yard they had lastvisited, his face as pale as death, but full of courage and high purpose.

  "There is nothing living here," he said, as he reached the Father, whohad not left the side of the dead. "We have been into all the houses, wehave looked everywhere, but there is nothing but dead corpses: man andbeast have perished alike. Nothing that breathes is left alive."

  The Father looked round upon the scene of smiling desolation -- thesunny harvest fields, the laughing brook, the broad meadows -- and theghastly rows of plague-stricken corpses at his feet, and a stern, sadchange passed across his face.

  "It is the hand of the Lord," he said, "and perchance He smites in mercyas well as in wrath, delivering men from the evil to come. Let us ariseand go hence. Our work is for the living and not the dead."

  For those three to have attempted to bury all that hamlet would havebeen an absolute impossibility. Dreadful as was the thought of turningaway and leaving the place as it was, it was hopeless to do otherwise,and possibly in the town men might be found able and willing to come outand inter the corpses in one common grave.

  With hearts full of awe, the two lads followed their conductor. He hadbeen through similar scenes in other lands. To him there was nothing newin sights such as this. Even the sense of personal peril, little as hehad ever regarded it, had long since passed away. But it was somethingaltogether new to Raymond and his companion; and though they had seendeath in many terrible forms upon the battlefield, it had never inspiredthe same feelings of horror and awe. It was impossible to forget thatthey might at any moment be breathing into their lungs the same deadlypoison which was carrying off multitudes on every side, and althoughthere was no conscious fear for themselves in the thought, it could notbut fill them with a quickened perception of the uncertainty of life andthe unreality of things terrestrial.

  In perfect silence the walk towards the little town was accomplished;and as they neared it terrible sights began to reveal themselves evenalong the roadside. Plainly indeed to be seen were evidences ofattempted flight from the plague-stricken place; and no doubt many hadmade good their escape, but others had fallen down by the wayside in adying state, and these dead or dying sufferers were the first tokensobserved by the travellers of the condition of the town.

  Not all were dead, though most were plainly hopeless cases. Raymond andRoger had both learned something during the hours of the previous night,when they had helped the good Brothers over their tasks; and theyfearlessly knelt beside the poor creatures, moistening their parchedlips, answering their feeble, moaning plaints, and summoning to the sideof the dying the Father, who could hear the feeble confession of sin,and pronounce the longed-for absolution to the departing soul.

  Passing still onwards -- for they could not linger long, and littleenough could be done for these dying sufferers, all past hope -- theyreached the streets of the town itself; and the first sight whichgreeted their eyes was the figure of a man stripped naked to the waist,his back bleeding from the blows he kept on inflicting upon himself withthe thick, knotted cord he held in his hands, a heavy and rough piece ofiron being affixed to the end to make the blows more severe. From thewaist downwards he was clothed with sackcloth, and as he rushed aboutthe streets shrieking and castigating himself, he called aloud on thepeople to repent of their sins, and to flee from the wrath of God thatwas falling upon the whole nation.

  Yet, though many dead and dying were lying in the streets about him, andthough cries and groans from many houses told that the destroyer was atwork there, this Flagellant (as these maniacs, of which at that timethere were only too many abroad, were called) never attempted to touchone of them, though he ran almost over their prostrate bodies, and hadapparently no fear of the contagion. There were very few people abroadin the streets, and such as were sound kept their faces covered withcloths steeped in vinegar or some other pungent mixture, and walkedgingerly in the middle of the road, as if afraid to approach either thehouses on each side or the other persons walking in the streets.

  A cart was going about, with two evil-looking men in it, who lifted insuch of the dead as they found lying by the roadside, and coollydivested them of anything of any value which they chanced to have uponthem before conveying them to the great pit just outside which had beendug to receive the victims of the plague.

  A wild panic had seized upon the place. Most of the influentialinhabitants had fled. There was no rule or order or oversight observed,and the priest of the church, who until this day had kept a certainwatch over his flock, and had gone about encouraging and cheering thepeople, had himself been stricken down with the fell malady, and no oneknew whether he were now living or dead.

  As the Father passed by, people rushed out from many doors to implorehim to come to this house or the other, to administer the last rites tosome one dying within. There were other houses marked with a red crosson the doors, which had been for many days closed by the townauthorities, until these had themselves fled, being assured that noperson could live in that polluted air. What had become of the wretchedbeings thus shut up, when the watchers who were told off to guard themhad fled in terror, it was hard to imagine; and whilst the Fatherresponded to the calls of those who required spiritual assistance at thelast dread hour, Raymond beckoned to Roger to follow him in hisvisitation to those places where the distemper had first showed itself,and where people had hoped to confine it by closing the houses andletting none go forth.

  The terribly deadly nature of the malady was well exemplified by thecondition of these houses. Scarce ten living souls were found in them,and of these almost all were reduced to the last extremity either bydisease or hunger; for none had been nigh them, and they had no strengthto try to make their wants known.

  Raymond had the satisfaction of seeing some amongst these wretchedbeings revive somewhat under his ministrations. It was not in every casethe real distemper from which they suffered; in not a few the patientshad sunk only from fright and the misery of feeling themselves shut awayfrom their fellows. Whenever any persons ailed anything in those days,it was at once supposed that the Black Death was upon them, and theywere shunned and abhorred by all their friends and kindred. To thesepoor creatures it seemed indeed as though an angel from heaven had comedown when Raymond bent over them and put food and drink to their lips.Many an office of loving mercy to the sick and dying did he and Rogerperform ere daylight faded from the sky; and before night actually fell,the Father had by precept and example got together a band of helpersready and willing to tend the sick and bury the dead, and the peoplefelt that the terrible panic which had fallen upon them, and causedevery one to flee away, had given place to something better and more humane.

  Men who had fled their stricken homes and had spent their time carousingin the taverns, trying to drown their fears and their griefs, nowreturned home to see how it fared with those who had been left behind.Women who had been almost distracted by grief, and had been rushing intothe church sobbing and crying, and neglecting the sick, that they mightpour out their hearts at the shrine of their favourite saint, wereadmonished by the Holy Father, so well known to them, to return to theirhomes and their duties. As the pall of night fell over the strickencity, and the three who had entered it a few hours before still toiledon without cessation, people breathed blessings on them wherever theyappeared, and Raymond felt that his work for the Lord in the midst ofHis stricken people had indeed begun.