Rewards and Fairies Part 33

'We were in some sort constrained to each other's company. I was for going to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his parish in Suss.e.x; but the plague was broke out and spreading through Wilts.h.i.+re, Berks.h.i.+re, and Hamps.h.i.+re, and he was so mad distracted to think that it might even then be among his folks at home that I bore him company. He had comforted me in my distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that I had a cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack's parish.

Thus we footed it from Oxford, ca.s.sock and buff coat together, resolute to leave wars on the left side henceforth; and either through our mean appearances, or the plague making men less cruel, we were not hindered.

To be sure they put us in the stocks one half-day for rogues and vagabonds at a village under St. Leonard's forest, where, as I have heard, nightingales never sing; but the constable very honestly gave me back my Astrological Almanac, which I carry with me.' Mr. Culpeper tapped his thin chest. 'I dressed a whitlow on his thumb. So we went forward.

'Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over against Jack Marget's parish in a storm of rain about the day's end. Here our roads divided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at Great Wigsell, but while Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we saw a man lying drunk, as he conceived, athwart the road. He said it would be one Hebden, a paris.h.i.+oner, and till then a man of good life; and he accused himself bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd, that had left his flock to follow princes. But I saw it was the plague, and not the beginnings of it neither. They had set out the plague-stone, and the man's head lay on it.'

'What's a plague-stone?' Dan whispered.

'When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut the roads against 'em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, where such as would purchase victual from outside may lay money and the paper of their wants, and depart. Those that would sell come later--what will a man not do for gain?--s.n.a.t.c.h the money forth, and leave in exchange such goods as their conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groat in the water, and the man's list of what he would buy was rain-pulped in his wet hand.

'"My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!" says Jack of a sudden, and makes up-hill--I with him.

'A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the village is stricken with the plague, and that for our lives' sake we must avoid it.

'"Sweetheart!" says Jack. "Must I avoid thee?" and she leaps at him and says the babes are safe. She was his wife.

'When he had thanked G.o.d, even to tears, he tells me this was not the welcome he had intended, and presses me to flee the place while I was clean.

'"Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee now," I said.

"These affairs are, under G.o.d's leave, in some fas.h.i.+on my strength."

'"Oh, sir," she says, "are you a physician? We have none."

'"Then, good people," said I, "I must e'en justify myself to you by my works."

'"Look--look ye," stammers Jack, "I took you all this time for a crazy Roundhead preacher." He laughs, and she, and then I--all three together in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or clap of laughter, which none the less eased us. We call it in medicine the Hysterical Pa.s.sion. So I went home with 'em.'

'Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell, Nick?' Puck suggested. ''Tis barely seven mile up the road.'

'But the plague was here,' Mr. Culpeper answered, and pointed up the hill. 'What else could I have done?'

'What were the parson's children called?' said Una.

'Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles--a babe. I scarce saw them at first, for I separated to live with their father in a cart-lodge. The mother we put--forced--into the house with her babes. She had done enough.

'And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in this case. The plague was worst on the north side of the street, for lack, as I showed 'em, of suns.h.i.+ne; which, proceeding from the _primum mobile_, or source of life (I speak astrologically), is cleansing and purifying in the highest degree. The plague was hot too by the corn-chandler's, where they sell forage to the carters; extreme hot in both Mills along the river, and scatteringly in other places, _except_, mark you, at the smithy. Mark here, that all forges and smith-shops belong to Mars, even as corn and meat and wine-shops acknowledge Venus for their mistress.

There was no plague in the smithy at Munday's Lane----'

'Munday's Lane? You mean our village? I thought so when you talked about the two Mills,' cried Dan. 'Where did we put the plague-stone? I'd like to have seen it.'

'Then look at it now,' said Puck, and pointed to the chickens'

drinking-trough where they had set their bicycle lamps. It was a rough, oblong stone pan, rather like a small kitchen sink, which Phillips, who never wastes anything, had found in a ditch and had used for his precious hens.

'That?' said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared.

Mr. Culpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on.

'I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I would have you follow, so far as you may, the operations of my mind. That plague which I told you I had handled outside Wallingford in Oxfords.h.i.+re was of a watery nature, conformable to the brookish riverine country it bred in, and curable, as I have said, by drenching in water. This plague of ours here, for all that it flourished along watercourses--every soul at both Mills died of it,--could not be so handled. Which brought me to a stand. Ahem!'

'And your sick people in the meantime?' Puck demanded.

'We persuaded them on the north side of the street to lie out in Hitheram's field. Where the plague had taken one, or at most two, in a house, folk would not s.h.i.+ft for fear of thieves in their absence. They cast away their lives to die among their goods.'

'Human nature,' said Puck. 'I've seen it time and again. How did your sick do in the fields?'

'They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors, and even then they died more out of distraction and melancholy than plague. But I confess, good people, I could not in any sort master the sickness, or come at a glimmer of its nature or governance. To be brief, I was flat bewildered at the brute malignity of the disease, and so--did what I should have done before--dismissed all conjectures and apprehensions that had grown up within me, chose a good hour by my Almanac, clapped my vinegar-cloth to my face, and entered some empty houses, resigned to wait upon the stars for guidance.'

'At night? Were you not horribly frightened?' said Puck.

'I dared to hope that the G.o.d who hath made man so n.o.bly curious to search out His mysteries might not destroy a devout seeker. In due time--there is a time, as I have said, for everything under the sun--I spied a whitish rat, very puffed and scabby, which sat beneath the dormer of an attic through which s.h.i.+ned our Lady the Moon. Whilst I looked on him--and her--she was moving towards old cold Saturn, her ancient ally--the rat creeped languis.h.i.+ngly into her light, and there, before my eyes, died. Presently his mate or companion came out, laid him down beside there, and in like fas.h.i.+on died too. Later--an hour or less to midnight--a third rat did e'en the same; always choosing the moonlight to die in. This threw me into an amaze, since, as we know, the moonlight is favourable, not hurtful, to the creatures of the Moon; and Saturn, being friends with her, as you would say, was hourly strengthening her evil influence. Yet these three rats had been stricken dead in very moonlight. I leaned out of the window to see which of Heaven's host might be on our side, and there beheld I good trusty Mars, very red and heated, bustling about his setting. I straddled the roof to see better.

'Jack Marget came up street going to comfort our sick in Hitheram's field. A tile slipped under my foot.

'Says he heavily enough, "Watchman, what of the night?"

"Heart up, Jack," says I. "Methinks there's one fighting for us that, like a fool, I've forgot all this summer." My meaning was naturally the planet Mars.

'"Pray to Him then," says he. "I forgot Him too this summer."

'He meant G.o.d, whom he always bitterly accused himself of having forgotten up in Oxfords.h.i.+re, among the King's men. I called down that he had made amends enough for his sin by his work among the sick, but he said he would not believe so till the plague was lifted from 'em. He was at his strength's end--more from melancholy than any just cause. I have seen this before among priests and over-cheerful men. I drenched him then and there with a half cup of waters, which I do not say cure the plague, but are excellent against heaviness of the spirits.'

'What were they?' said Dan.

'White brandy rectified, camphor, cardamoms, ginger, two sorts of pepper, and aniseed.'

'Whew!' said Puck. 'Waters you call 'em!'

'Jack coughed on it valiantly, and went down hill with me. I was for the Lower Mill in the valley, to note the aspect of the Heavens. My mind had already shadowed forth the reason, if not the remedy, for our troubles, but I would not impart it to the vulgar till I was satisfied. That practice may be perfect, judgment ought to be sound, and to make judgment sound is required an exquisite knowledge. Ahem! I left Jack and his lantern among the sick in Hitheram's field. He still maintained the prayers of the so-called Church, which were rightly forbidden by Cromwell.'

'You should have told your cousin at Wigsell,' said Puck, 'and Jack would have been fined for it, and you'd have had half the money. How did you come so to fail in your duty, Nick?'

Mr. Culpeper laughed--his only laugh that evening--and the children jumped at the loud neigh of it.

'We were not fearful of _men's_ judgment in those days,' he answered.

'Now mark me closely, good people, for what follows will be to you, though not to me, remarkable. When I reached the empty Mill, old Saturn, low down in the House of the Fishes, threatened the Sun's rising-place.

Our Lady the Moon was moving towards the help of him (understand, I speak astrologically). I looked abroad upon the high Heavens, and I prayed the Maker of 'em for guidance. Now Mars sparklingly withdrew himself below the sky. On the instant of his departure, which I noted, a bright star or vapour leaped forth above his head (as though he had heaved up his sword), and broke all about in fire. The c.o.c.ks crowed midnight through the valley, and I sat me down by the mill-wheel, chewing spearmint (though that's a herb of Venus), and calling myself all the a.s.ses' heads in the world! 'Twas plain enough _now_!'

'What was plain?' said Una.

'The true cause and cure of the plague. Mars, good fellow, had fought for us to the uttermost. Faint though he had been in the Heavens, and this had made me overlook him in my computations, he more than any of the other planets had kept the Heavens--which is to say, had been visible some part of each night wellnigh throughout the year. Therefore his fierce and cleansing influence, warring against the Moon, had stretched out to kill those three rats under my nose, and under the nose of their natural mistress, the Moon. I had known Mars lean half across Heaven to deal our Lady the Moon some shrewd blow from under his s.h.i.+eld, but I had never before seen his strength displayed so effectual.'

'I don't understand a bit. Do you mean Mars killed the rats because he hated the Moon?' said Una.

'_That_ is as plain as the pikestaff with which Blagge's men pushed me forth,' Mr. Culpeper answered. 'I'll prove it. Why had the plague not broken out at the blacksmith's shop in Munday's Lane? Because, as I've shown you, forges and smithies belong naturally to Mars, and, for his honour's sake, Mars 'ud keep 'em clean from the creatures of the Moon.

But was it like, think you, that he'd come down and rat-catch in general for lazy, ungrateful mankind? That were working a willing horse to death. So then you can see that the meaning of the blazing star above him when he set was simply this: "Destroy and burn the creatures of the Moon, for they are at the root of your trouble. And thus, having shown you a taste of my power, good people, adieu."'

'Did Mars really say all that?' Una whispered.

'Yes, and twice so much as that to any one who had ears to hear.

Briefly, he enlightened me that the plague was spread by the creatures of the Moon. The Moon, our Lady of Ill-aspect, was the offender. My own poor wits showed me that I, Nick Culpeper, had the people in my charge, G.o.d's good providence aiding me, and no time to lose neither.