In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince by Everett-Green (the chimp paradox txt) 📗

The lads were indeed tired enough, though they had scarcely known it in the strange excitement of the journey, and amid the terrible scenes of death and sickness which they had witnessed around and about the Monastery doors since their arrival there. Now, however, that they had received the command to rest and sleep (and to gainsay the Father's commands was a thing that would never have entered their minds), they were willing enough to obey, and had hardly laid themselves down before they fell into a deep slumber, from which neither awoke until the light of day had long been shining upon the world, and the Father stood beside them 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, from whence a low sound of chanting began to arise. There were not many of the Brothers present at the early service, most of them being engaged in tending the plague-stricken guests beneath their roof. But the Father was performing the office of the mass, and when he had himself partaken of the Sacrament, he signed to the two boys, who were about to go forth with him into scenes of greater peril than any they had witnessed heretofore, to come and receive it likewise.

The service over, and some simple refreshment partaken of, the youths prepared for their day's toil, scarce knowing what they would be like to see, but resolved to follow Father Paul wherever he went, anxious only to 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 that had been found to give most relief in cases of utter collapse and exhaustion, a few simple medicaments and outward applications thought to be of some use in allaying the pain of those terrible black swellings from which the sickness took its significant name, and some simply-prepared food for the sufferers, who were often like to perish from inanition even before the plague had done its worst. For stricken persons, or those supposed to be stricken, were often turned out of their homes even by their nearest relatives, and forced to wander about homeless and starving, none taking pity upon their misery, until the poison 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 deadly sickness has always been one of the most terrible features of the outbreaks 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 before estranged; and terrible though these perils may be, there is always a deep sense of underlying consolation in the closer drawing of the bond of brotherhood. But when the scourge of deadly sickness has passed over the land, the effect has almost always been to slacken this tie; the inherent love of life, natural to human beings, turning to an almost incredible selfishness, and inducing men to abandon their nearest and dearest in the hour of peril, leaving them, if stricken, to die alone, or turning them, sick to death though they might be, away from their doors, to perish untended and without shelter. True, there were many bright exceptions to such a code of barbarity, and devoted men and women arose by the score to strive to ameliorate the condition of the sufferers; but for all that, one of the most terrible features of the period of death and desolation was that of the fearful panic it everywhere produced, and the inhuman neglect and cruelty with which the early sufferers were treated by the very persons who, perhaps only a few days or even hours later, had themselves caught the contagion, and were lying dead or dying in the homes from which they had ejected their own kith and kin before.

Of the fearful havoc wrought in England by this scourge of the Black Death many readers of history are scarcely aware. Whole districts were actually and entirely depopulated, not a living creature of any kind being left sometimes within a radius of many miles; and at the lowest computation made by historians, it is believed that not less than one-half of the entire population perished during the outbreak.

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

The Father and his two assistants went forth after they had partaken of food, and turned their faces westward.

"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 person to care for their bodies or souls, and I trow we shall find work to do there. If time permits when we have done what we may there, we will pass on to the little town round the church of St. Michael, whose spire you see yonder on the hillside. Many of the stricken folks within our walls came from thence. The sickness is raging there, and there may be few helpers left by now."

The same sultry haze the travellers had noticed in the infected regions was still hanging over the woods today as they sallied forth; and though the sun was shining in the sky, its beams were thick and blood-red instead of being clear and bright, and there was an oppression in the air which caused the birds to cease their song, and lay on the spirit like 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 Holy Sacrament with which to console the dying. "Men have long been forgetting Him. But He will not alway be forgotten. He will arise in judgment and show men the error of their ways. If in their prosperity they will not remember Him, He will call Himself to their remembrance by a terrible day of adversity. And who may stand before the Lord? Who may abide 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 was quickly traversed, and the clearing reached which showed the near approach to the village. There was a break in the forest at this point, and some excellent pasture land and arable fields had tempted two farmers to establish themselves here, a small hamlet growing quickly up around the farmsteads. This small community supplied the Brothers with some of the necessaries of life, and every soul there was known to the Father. Some dozen persons had come to the Monastery gates during the past two days, stricken and destitute, and had been taken in there. But all these had died and no others had followed, and Father Paul was naturally anxious to know how it fared with those left behind.

Raymond and Roger both knew the villagers well. The two years spent within the walls of the Brotherhood had made them fully acquainted with the people round about. The little hamlet was a pretty spot: a number of low thatched cottages nestled together beside the stream that watered the meadows, whilst the larger farmsteads, which, however, were only modest dwelling houses with their barns and sheds forming a background to 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 pleasant homely sounds of life connected with farming. Today, with the golden grain all ready for the reaper's hand, one looked to hear the sound of the sickle in the corn, and the voices of the labourers calling to each other, or singing some rustic harvest song over their task. But instead of that a deadly and death-like silence prevailed; and Raymond, who had quickened his steps as he neared the familiar spot, now involuntarily paused and hung back, as if half afraid of what he would be forced to look upon when once the last turning was passed.

But Father Paul moved steadily on, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. There was no hesitation or faltering in his step, and the two youths pressed after him, ashamed of their moment's backwardness. The sun had managed to pierce through the haze, and was shining now with some of its wonted brilliancy. As Raymond turned the corner and saw before him the whole of the little hamlet, he almost wished the sun had ceased to shine, the contrast between the beauty and brightness of nature and the scene upon which it looked being almost too fearful for endurance.

Lying beside the river bank, in every attitude and contortion of the death agony, were some dozen prostrate forms of men, women, and children, all dead and still. It seemed as though they must have crawled forth from the houses when the terrible fever thirst was upon them, and dragging themselves down to the water's edge, had perished there. And yet if all were dead, as indeed there could be small doubt from their perfect stillness and rigidity, why did none come forth to bury them? Already the warm air was tainted and oppressive with that plague-stricken odour so unspeakably deadly to the living. Why did not the survivors come forth from their homes and bury the dead out of their sight? Had all fled and left them to their fate?

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

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

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

Glad enough to turn his eyes from the terrible sight without, Raymond hurried past to the cluster of dwelling places beyond, and entering the first of these himself, signed to Roger to go into the second. He had some slight difficulty in pushing open the door, not because it was fastened, but owing to some encumbrance behind. When, however, he succeeded in forcing his way in, he found that the encumbrance was nothing more or less than the body of a woman lying dead along the floor of 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 the terrible malady visible upon their little bodies, though the end seemed to have been painless. No other person was in the house, and Raymond, drawing a covering over the children as they lay, turned from the house again with a shudder of compassionate sorrow. Outside he met Roger coming forth with a look of awe upon his face.

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

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

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

It seemed as if the scourge had fallen with peculiar virulence upon this little hamlet, in the warm cup-like hollow where it lay, and had smitten it root and branch. Possibly the waters