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THE 
 
 SICKNESS AND HEALTH 
 
 PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES S FRANCIS AND COMPANY. 
 
 1853. 
 
Erforcd accondiiig to Aft of Oongrcsg, in the vear 18o3, by 
 
 CR08BT, Nichols, and Company, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Dij,triit of Ma.';i^8cliu>«t t< 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 BTEUEOTVrED AND PRINTED BT 
 M E T C A K F AND COMPANY 
 
 PUINTEUS TO THE fMVKRSlTY. 
 

 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 When, about three years ago, the follow- 
 ing tale appeared in " Household Words," 
 relatives and friends in this country did 
 not need the familiar and endeared name 
 given, with questionable propriety, to the 
 heroine, to tell them that it was founded on 
 fact, and no exaggeration of a beautiful 
 reality. Within a few weeks, — so far 
 as a self-forgetting humility made partial 
 disclosures, even in private letters, of a 
 remarkable passage in her experiences, — 
 the knowledge, before confined almost en- 
 tirely to her kindred, has been given to 
 thousands of readers, in the Memoir of one, 
 who, throughout her whole life, as well as 
 a* 
 
 «^2G4aHG 
 
IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 during her blosscd and })cciiliar minii?tra- 
 tioiis in a far-distant, obscure, and disease- 
 smitten village, deserved the title of " The 
 Good Lady." The natural feeling, there- 
 fore, which heretofore shrank from the re- 
 publication of the story, lest truth and fic- 
 tion might be confounded, can hardly object 
 now to its being sent forth on a new mis- 
 sion of beneficence. The slight anachro- 
 nisms can be easily corrected ; and though 
 the design of the author, in clothing a 
 noble example in an attractive garb for 
 the i nstruction of the peop le, led to the in- 
 vention of incidents and the picturing of 
 imaginary scenes, the veritable occurrences 
 amply justify the fictitious representations, 
 and make the narrative true — in the sense 
 in which it is most important to have it 
 true — to the bright, energetic, unselfish, 
 religious character of Mary Pickard. The 
 portrait is a correct likeness, if a portion of 
 the scenery and figures of the background 
 are the creation of fancy. 
 
 So, we trust, there are no private reasons 
 to forbid, even if there would be a natural 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 reluctance to assent to, the reappearance, in 
 a volume by itself, of " The Sickness and 
 Health of the People of Bleaburn." 
 
 But, independent of all reference to the 
 singular occurrences which suggested it, 
 this tale has merits of its own, instructive 
 and important lessons, which render its wide 
 circulation desirable. In a form that will 
 invite and command attention, it enforces 
 duties to be discharged, portrays qualities 
 of head and heart to be cultivated, exhibits, 
 either as warning or encouragement, con- 
 duct to be avoided or imitated, in every 
 human life ; for it describes that which 
 exists substantially, and to some extent, in 
 all communities, and may exist, in a de- 
 gree, under any roof. The evils, physical 
 and moral, of ignorance and superstition; 
 the weakness, selfishness, perils, of panic 
 and fear ; the true use of the discipline of 
 trial ; the contrast between faithfulness and 
 unfaithfulness in the season of temptation ; 
 the manner in which trouble reveals the 
 good and evil of the heart ; and, above all, 
 the effective influence of a cheerful, firm, 
 
Vl ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 intelligent, conscientious, rational piety, ad- 
 hering trustfully to the plain command- 
 ment of duty, and going quietly, but stead- 
 fastly, about its work of mercy, — are pre- 
 sented with a graphic simplicity and truth- 
 fulness. No one can read it without being 
 made better, by getting from it some hints 
 at least of the preparation of head and 
 heart for those scenes of poverty, suiTering, 
 or sickness, which enter into our human 
 lot, and cannot always be escaped. How- 
 to inspire courage in the desponding and 
 despairing ; how to deal wdth blind preju- 
 dices ; how to cheer and nurse the sick ; how 
 to change selfish terror into helpful sympa- 
 thy ; how to reprove by example the cow- 
 ardice that attracts the very evil it would 
 avoid ; how to accept humbly and confid- 
 ingly the hardest tasks Providence calls 
 upon us to fulfil, and by so doing find 
 seemingly insurmountable diiTiculties fade 
 away as the morning mist before the sun, 
 — these are some of the lessons which will 
 steal into the bosoms, and leave their im- 
 press on the souls, even of those who take 
 
ADVERTISEMENT Vli 
 
 up this little book merely for amusement. 
 And certainly this would be a sufficient 
 recommendation, were it entirely, as to a 
 considerable extent it is, imaginary, as to 
 the representative persons and incidents. 
 
 Still we cannot and would not dissociate 
 the story from the actual experience which 
 suggested it; for its republication may ac- 
 complish a greater good than simply in- 
 creasing the circulation and usefulness of 
 an instructive tale. Those who read it 
 will, we trust, desire to know more of the 
 spirit of one, whose Christian fidelity and 
 benevolence are so vividly represented, and 
 be led to seek her Memoir ; thus they will 
 learn, that in respect to high principles, 
 generous sympathies, gentle affections, un- 
 swerving fidelity to conscience, and trust- 
 iul faith, the months spent in serving the 
 destitute, ignorant, and suffering, in the 
 daily presence of disease and death, with- 
 out a thought of praise or reward, were 
 after all no strange episode in her life, but 
 only one manifestation, made prominent by 
 circumstance, of a character always and 
 
Vlll ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 everywhere, in prosperity and in sorrow, 
 in health and in sickness, even to the last 
 hours spent on earth, harmonious, true, and 
 beautiful, — Christian. 
 
 Boston, Jamuiry 21, 1853. 
 
SICKNESS AND HEALTH 
 
 PEOPLE OF BLEABUHN 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 It was not often that any thing happened 
 to enliven the village of Bleaburn, in York- 
 shire : but there was a day in the summer 
 of 1811, when the inhabitants were roused 
 from their apathy, and hardly knew them- 
 selves. A stranger was once heard to say, 
 after some accident had compelled him to 
 pass through Bleaburn, that he saw nothing 
 there but a blacksmith asleep, and a couple 
 of rabbits hung up by the heels. That the 
 blacksmith was wholly asleep at midday 
 might indicate that there was a public 
 house in the place ; but, even there, in that 
 liveliest and most intellectual spot in a 
 country village of those days, — the ale- 
 house kitchen, — the people sat half asleep. 
 Sodden with beer, and almost without ideas 
 1 
 
U SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 and interests, the men of the place let indo- 
 lence creep over them ; and there they sat, 
 as quiet a set of customers as ever landlord 
 had to deal with. For one thing, they 
 were almost all old or elderly men. The 
 boys were out after the rabbits on the 
 neighboring moor ; and the young men 
 were far away. A recruiting party had 
 met with unusual success, for two succes- 
 sive years (now some time since), in in- 
 ducing the men of Bleaburn to enter the 
 king's service. In a place where nobody 
 was very wise, and every body was very 
 dull, the drum and fife, the soldierly march, 
 the scarlet coats, the gay ribbons, the drink 
 and the pay, had charms which can hardly 
 be conceived of by dwellers in towns, to 
 whose eyes and ears something new is pre- 
 sented every day. Several men went from 
 Bleaburn to be soldiers, and Bleaburn was 
 declared to be a loyal place ; and many 
 who had never before heard of its existence, 
 spoke of it now as a bright example of at- 
 tachment and devotion to the throne in a 
 most disloyal age. While, throughout the 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 3 
 
 manufacturing districts, the people were 
 breaking machinery, — while on these very 
 Yorkshire hills they were drilling their 
 armed forces, — while the moneyed men 
 were grumbling at the taxes, and at the 
 war in Spain, whence, for a long time, they 
 had heard of many disasters and no victo- 
 ries ; and while the hungry laborers in town 
 and country were asking how they were to 
 buy bread when wheat was selling at 95^. 
 the quarter, and while there were grave ap- 
 prehensions of night-burnings of the corn 
 magazines, the village of Bleaburn, which 
 could not be seen without being expressly 
 sought, was sending up strong men out of 
 its cleft of the hills, to fight .the battles of 
 their country. 
 
 Perhaps the chief reason of the loyalty, 
 as well as the quietness of Bleaburn, was 
 its lying in a cleft of the hills ; in a fissure 
 so deep and narrow, that a traveller in a 
 chaise might easily pass near it without 
 perceiving that there was any settlement 
 at all, unless it was in the morning when 
 the people were lighting their fires, or on 
 
4 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 the nifi^ht of such a day as that on ^vhich 
 our story opens. In the one case, the 
 smoke issuing from the cleft might hint of 
 habitations ; in the other, the noise and 
 ruddy light would leave no doubt of there 
 being somebody there. There was, at last, 
 a victory in Spain. The news of the battle 
 of Albuera had arrived ; and it spread 
 abroad over the kingdom, lighting up bon- 
 fires in the streets, and millions of candles 
 in windows, before people had time to 
 learn at what cost this victory was obtained, 
 and how very nearly it had been a fatal 
 defeat, or any thing about it, in short. If 
 they had known the fact that while our 
 allies, the Spaniards, Portuguese, and Ger- 
 mans, suffered but moderately, the British 
 were slaughtered as horribly as they could 
 have been under defeat : so that, out of six 
 thousand men who went up the hill, only 
 fifteen hundred were left standing at the 
 top, the people might have let their bonfires 
 burn out as soon as they would, and might 
 have put out their candles that mourners 
 might weep in darkness. But they burst 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 5 
 
 into rejoicing first, and learned details after- 
 wards. 
 
 Every boy in Bleaburn forgot the rabbits 
 that day. All were busy getting in wood 
 for the bonfire. Not a swinging shutter, 
 not a loose pale, not a bit of plank, or 
 rickety gate, or shaking footbridge, escaped 
 their clutches. Where they hid theit stock 
 during the day, nobody knew; but there 
 was a mighty pile at dusk. It was then 
 that poor Widow Slaney, stealing out to 
 close her shutter, because she could not 
 bear the sound of rejoicing, nor the sight of 
 her neighbors abroad in the ruddy light, 
 found that her shutter was gone. All day 
 she had been in the loft, lest she should see 
 any body ; for the clergyman had been to 
 tell her that her son Harry had been , shot 
 as a deserter. She had refused to believe 
 it at first ; but Mr. Finch had explained to 
 her that the soldiers in Spain had suffered 
 so cruelly from hunger, and want of shoes 
 and of every comfort, that hundreds of 
 them had gone into the towns to avoid 
 starvation ; and then, when the towns were 
 
6 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 taken by the allies, such British soldiers as 
 were found, and were declared to have no 
 business there, were treated as deserters, 
 for an exam])le. It was some comfort that 
 Mr. Finch did not think that Harry had 
 done any thing very wicked ; but Mrs. 
 Slancy could not meet any one, nor bear 
 the flaring light on her ceiling; so she 
 went up to the loft again, and cried all 
 night in the dark. Farmer Neale was the 
 wonder of the place this evening. He was 
 more gracious than any body, though there 
 was nobody who was not, at all times, 
 afraid of him. When he was seen striding 
 down the steep narrow street, the little boys 
 hid themselves. They had not been able 
 to resist altogether the temptation of dry 
 thorns in his fences, and of the chips which 
 had still lain about where his winter felling 
 had been done, and they concluded he was 
 come now to give them a rough handling: 
 but they found themselves mistaken. He 
 was in high good-humor, sending such 
 boys as he could catch with orders upon 
 his people at home for a tar-barrel and a 
 whole load of faggots. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 7 
 
 "'Tis hardly natural, though, is it?" 
 said Mrs. Billiter to Ann Warrender. " It 
 does not seem natural for any father to re- 
 joice in a victory when his own son has 
 lost his best leg there." 
 
 " Has Jack Neale lost his leg? O, what 
 a thing I " exclaimed Ann Warrender. She 
 was ^oing on, but she perceived that the 
 farmer had heard her. 
 
 " Yes," said he, without any sound of 
 heart-pain in his voice. " Jack has lost his 
 right leg, Mr. Finch tells me. And I tell 
 Mr. Finch, it is almost a pity the other did 
 not go after it. He deserved no more good 
 of either of them when he had let them 
 do such a thing as carry him off from his 
 home and his duty." 
 
 " How can you, Mr. Neale ? " burst out 
 both the women. 
 
 " How can I do what, my dears ? One 
 thing I can do ; and that is, see when an 
 undutiful son is properly punished. He 
 must live on his pension, however : he can 
 be of no use to me now ; and I can't be 
 burdened with a cripple at home." 
 
8 SICKNESS AND IIKALTII OF 
 
 " I don't think lie will ask you," Mrs. 
 Billiter said. " He was none so happy 
 there before as to want to come again." 
 
 Ann Warrender told this speech to her 
 father, afterwards, as the severest she had 
 ever heard from Mrs. Billiter; and they 
 agreed that it was very bold, considering 
 that Billiter was one of Farmer Neale's 
 laborers. But they also agreed that it was 
 enough to stir up liesh and blood to see a 
 man made hearty and good-humored by 
 misfortune having befallen a son who had 
 offended him. After all, poor Jack Neale 
 had run away only because he could not 
 bear his father's tyranny. Two more of 
 the Bleaburn recruits had suffered, — had 
 been killed outright ; one a widower, who, 
 in his first grief, had left his babes with 
 their grandmother, and gone to the wars ; 
 and the other an ignorant lout, who had 
 been entrapped because he was tall and 
 strong ; had been fuddled with beer, flat- 
 tered with talk of finery, and carried off 
 before he could recover his slow wits. He 
 was gone, and would soon be forgotten. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. \) 
 
 " I say, Jem," said Farmer Neale, when 
 he met the village idiot, Jem Johnson, 
 shulhing along the street, staring at the 
 lights : " you 're the wise man, after all : 
 you 're the best off, my man." 
 
 Widow Johnson, who was just behind, 
 put her arm in poor Jem's, and tried to 
 make him move on. She was a stern 
 woman ; but she was as much disgusted 
 at Farmer Neale's hardness as her tender- 
 hearted daughter, Mrs. Billiter, or any one 
 else. 
 
 " Good-day, Mrs. Johnson," said Neale. 
 " You are better off for a son than I am, 
 after all. Yours is not such a fool as to go 
 and get his leg shot off, like my precious 
 son." 
 
 Mrs. Johnson looked him hard in the 
 face, as she would a madman or a drunken 
 man whom she meant to intimidate ; and 
 compelled her son to pass on. In truth, 
 Farmer Neale was drunk with evil pas- 
 sions ; in such high spirits, that, when he 
 found that the women — mothers of sons 
 — would have nothing to say to him to- 
 
10 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 f 
 
 day, he went to the pubHc-house, where he 
 was pretty sure of being humored by the 
 men who depended on his employment for 
 bread, and on his temper for much of the 
 peace of their lives. 
 
 On his way he met the clergyman, and 
 proposed to him to make a merry evening 
 of it. " If you will just step in at the 
 Plough and Harrow, Sir," said he, " and 
 tell us all you have heard about the victory, 
 it will be the finest thing, — just what the 
 men want. And we will drink your health, 
 and the King's, and Marshal Beresford's, 
 who won the victory. It is a fine occasion, 
 Sir ; an occasion to confirm the loyalty of 
 the people. You will come with me. 
 Sir ? " 
 
 " No," replied Mr. Finch, " I have to go 
 among another sort of people, Neale. If 
 you have spirits to make merry to-night, I 
 own to you I have not. Victories that 
 cost so much, do not make me very merry." 
 
 " O, fie, Mr. Finch I How are we to 
 keep up our character for loyalty, if you 
 fail us, — if you put on a black face in the 
 hour of rejoicing ? " 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 11 
 
 " Just come with me," said Mr. Finch, 
 " and I can show you cause enough for 
 heaviness of heart. In our small village, 
 there is mourning in many houses. Three 
 of our late neighbors are dead, and one of 
 them in such a way as will break his 
 mother's heart." 
 
 " And another has lost a leg, you are 
 thinking. Out with it, Sir, and don't be 
 afraid of my feelings about it. Well, it is 
 certain that Bleaburn has suffered more 
 than is the fair share of one place ; but we 
 must be loyal." 
 
 " And so," said Mr. Finch, " you are go- 
 ing to prepare more of your neighbors to 
 enlist, the next time a recruiting party 
 comes this way. O, I don't say that men 
 are not to be encouraged to serve their 
 king and country : but it seems to me that 
 our place has done its duty well enough 
 for the present. I wonder that you, as a 
 farmer, do not consider the rates, and dread 
 the consequences of having the women 
 and children on our hands, if our able men 
 get killed and maimed in the wars. I 
 
12 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 should have thought that the price of 
 bread—" 
 
 " Tliere, now, don't let us talk about 
 that!" said Neale. " You know that is a 
 subject that we never agree about* We 
 will let alone the price of bread for to-day." 
 
 Neale might easily forget this sore sub- 
 ject, and every other that was disagreeable 
 to other people, in the jollity at the Plough 
 and Harrow, where there was an uproar of 
 tipsy mirth for the greater part of the night. 
 But Mr. Finch found little mirth among 
 the people left at home in the cottages. 
 The poor women, who lived hardly, knit- 
 ting for eighteen hours out of the twenty- 
 four, and finding themselves less and less 
 able to overtake the advancing prices of 
 the necessaries of life, had no gi-eat store of 
 spirits to spend in rejoicing over victories, 
 or any tiling else ; and among them there 
 was one who loved Jack Neale, and was 
 beloved by him ; and others, who res^pected 
 Widow Slaney, and could not countenance 
 noisy mirth while she was sunk in horror 
 and grief. They were hungry enough, too, 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABUKN. 13 
 
 to look upon young Slaney's death as 
 something o\ an outrage. If hunger and 
 nakedness had driven him into the shelter 
 of a town, to avoid dying by the roadside, 
 it seemed to them that being shot was a 
 hard punishment for the offence. Mr. Finch 
 endeavored to show, in hackneyed language, 
 what the dereliction of duty really was, and 
 how intolerable during warfare ; but the 
 end of it was that the neighbors pitied the 
 poor young man the more, the more they 
 dwelt upon his fate. 
 
 As it turned out, Bleaburn made more 
 sacrifices to the war than those of the bat- 
 tle of Albuera, even before drum or fife was 
 again heard coming over the moor. The 
 place had not been healthy before ; and ill- 
 ness set in somewhat seriously after the 
 excitements of the bonfire night. The cold 
 and wet spring had discouraged the whole 
 kingdom about the harvest; and in Blea- 
 burn it had done something more. Where 
 there are stone houses, high winds aggra- 
 vate the damage of wet weather. The 
 driven rain had been sucked in by the 
 
14 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 stone ; and more wet was absorbed from 
 the foundations, when the swollen stream 
 had rushed down the hollow, and over- 
 flowed into the houses, and the pigsties, 
 and every empty place into which it could 
 run. Where there were glass windows 
 and fires in the rooms, the panes were 
 dewy, and the walls shiny with trickling 
 drops ; and in the cottages where there 
 were no fires, the inhabitants were so chilly, 
 that they stuffed up every broken window- 
 pane, and closed all chinks by which air 
 might enter, in hopes of keeping themselves 
 warm ; but the floors were never really dry 
 that summer, and even the beds had a 
 chilly feeh The best shoes showed mould 
 between one Sunday and another ; and 
 the meal in the bin (of those who were so 
 fortunate as to have a meal-bin) did not 
 keep well. Mr. Finch had talked a great 
 deal about what was to be expected from 
 summer weather and the harvest ; but as 
 the weeks went on, there were graver 
 doubts about the harvest than there had 
 been even while people were complaining 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 15 
 
 at Easter, and shaking their heads at Whit- 
 suntide ; and when a few days of hot 
 weather came at last, the people of Blea- 
 burn did not know how to bear them at all. 
 The dead rats and decaying matter which 
 had been deposited by the spring overflow 
 made such a stench, that people shut their 
 windows closer than ever. Their choice 
 now was between being broiled in the heat 
 which was reflected from the sides of the 
 cleft in which they lived, and being shut 
 into houses where the w^alls, floors, and 
 windows were reeking with steam. The 
 women, who sat still all day, knitting, had 
 little chance for health in such abodes ; and 
 still less had such of the men as, already 
 weakened by low diet, had surfeited them- 
 selves with beer on the night of the rejoicing, 
 and broiled themselves in the heat of the 
 bonfire, and fevered mind and body with 
 shouting and singing and brawling, and 
 been brought home to be laid upon musty 
 straw, under a somewhat damp blanket. 
 This excess was hardly more pernicious to 
 some than depression was to others. Those 
 
16 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 of tlic ])cople at Bleaburn that had received 
 lieart-wonnds froin the battle of Albuera, 
 thought they could never care again for 
 any personal troubles or privations ; but 
 they were not long in learning that they 
 now suilered more than before from low 
 diet and every sort of discomfort. They 
 blamed themselves for being selfish ; but 
 this self-blame again made the matter 
 worse. They had lost a hope which had 
 kept them up. They were not only in 
 grief, but thoroughly discouraged. Their 
 gloom was increased by seeing that a 
 chancre had come over Mr. Finch. On 
 Sundays he looked so anxious, that it was 
 enough to lower people's spirits to go to 
 church. His very voice was dismal, as he 
 read the service ; his sermon grew shorter 
 almost every Sunday : and it was about 
 every thing that the people cared least 
 about. He gave them discussions of doc- 
 trine, or dry moral essays, which were as 
 stones to them when they wanted the bread 
 of consolation and the wine of hoj^o. Here 
 and tlicrc, women said it really was too 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 17 
 
 much for their spirits to go to church, 
 and they staid away ; and the boys and 
 girls took the opportunity to go spying 
 upon the rabbits. It was such boys and 
 girls that gave news of Mr. Finch during 
 the week. Every morning, he was so busy 
 over his books in his study, that it was no 
 easy matter to get a sight of him ; and 
 every fine afternoon he went quietly, by a 
 by-path, to a certain spot on the moor, 
 where an ostler from the Cross Keys at 
 
 O was awaiting him with the horse on 
 
 which he took long rides over the hills. 
 Mr. Finch was taking care of his health. 
 
18 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Can I have a chaise ? " inquired a 
 young lady, on being set down by the 
 coach at the Cross Keys, at O . 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, certainly," replied the neat 
 landlady. 
 
 " How far do you call it to Bleaburn ? " 
 
 " To Bleaburn, ma'am I It is six miles. 
 But, ma'am, you arc not going to Bleaburn, 
 surely." 
 
 « Indeed I am. Why not ? " 
 
 " Because of the fever, ma'am. There 
 never was any thing heard of like it. You 
 cannot go there, I assure you, ma'am, and 
 I could not think of sending a chaise there. 
 Neither of my postboys would go." 
 
 " One of them shall take me as near as is 
 safe, then. I dare say we shall fmd some- 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 19 
 
 body who will take care of my little trunk 
 till I can send for it." 
 
 " The cordon would take care of your 
 trunk, if that were all, but — " 
 
 " The what ? " interrupted the young 
 lady. 
 
 " The cordon, they call it, ma'am. To 
 preserve ourselves, we have set people to 
 watch on the moor above, to prevent any 
 body from Bleaburn coming among us, to 
 spread the fever. Ma'am, it is worse than 
 any thing you ever heard of." 
 
 " Not worse than the plague," thought 
 Mary Pickard, in whose mind now rose up 
 all she had read and heard of the horrors of 
 the great plague, and all the longing she 
 had felt when a child to have been a clergy- 
 man at such a time, or at least a physician, 
 to give comfort to numbers in their ex- 
 tremity. 
 
 " Indeed, ma'am," resumed the landlady, 
 "you cannot go there. By what I hear, 
 there are very few now that are not dead, 
 or down in the fever." 
 
 " Then they will want me the more," 
 
20 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 said iMary Pickard. " I must go and see 
 my aunt. I wrote to her that I should go ; 
 and she may want me more than I thought." 
 
 " Have you an aunt living at Bleaburn ? " 
 asked the landlady, in some surprise. " I 
 did not know that there was any lady living 
 at Bleaburn. I thought they had been all 
 poor people there." 
 
 " I believe my aunt is poor," said Mary. 
 " I have heard nothing of her for several 
 years, except merely that she was living at 
 Bleaburn. She had the education of a gen- 
 tlewoman ; but I believe her husband be- 
 came a common laborer before he died. 1 
 am from America, and my name is JNIary 
 Pickard, and my aunt's name is Johnson; 
 and I shall be glad if you can tell me any 
 thing about her, if this fever is really raging 
 as you say. I must see her before I go 
 home to America." 
 
 " You see, ma'am, if you go," said the 
 landlady, contemplating the little trunk, 
 "you will not be able to come away again 
 while the fever lasts." 
 
 " And you think I shall not have clothes 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 21 
 
 enough," said Mary, smiling. " I packed 
 my box for a week only, but I dare say I 
 can manage. If every body was ill, I could 
 wash my clothes myself. I have done such 
 a thing with less reason. Or, I could send 
 to London for more. I suppose one can 
 get at a post-office.-' 
 
 " Through the cordon, I dare say you 
 might, ma'am. But, really, I don't know 
 that there is any body at Bleaburn that can 
 write a letter, except the clergyman and the 
 doctor and one or two more." 
 
 " My aunt can," said Mary, " and it is 
 because she does not answer our letters, 
 that I am so anxious to see her. You did 
 not tell me whether you know her name, 
 — Johnson." 
 
 " A widow, I think you said, ma'am." 
 And the landlady called to the ostler to ask 
 him if he knew any thing of a Widow 
 Johnson, who lived at Bleaburn. Will Ost- 
 ler said there was a woman of that name 
 who was the mother of Silly Jem. " Might 
 that be she ? " Mary had never heard of 
 Silly Jem ; but when she found that Wid- 
 
^ZZ SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 o\v Johnson had a daughter, some years 
 married, that she had white hair, and strong 
 black eyes, and a strong face altogether, 
 and that she seldom spoke, she had little 
 doubt that one so like certain of her rela- 
 tions was her aunt. The end of it was, 
 that Mary went to Bleaburn. She ordered 
 the chaise herself, leaving it to the land- 
 lady to direct the postboy where to set her 
 down ; she appealed to the w^oman's good 
 feelings to aid her if she should iind that 
 wine, linen, or other comforts were neces- 
 sary at Bleaburn, and she could not be al- 
 lowed to come and buy tiieni ; explained 
 that she was far from rich, and told the ex- 
 act sum which she at present believed she 
 should be justified in spending on behalf of 
 the sick ; and gave a reference to a commer- 
 cial house in London. She did not tell — 
 and indeed she gave only a momentary 
 thought to it herself — that the sum of 
 money she had mentioned was that which 
 she had saved up to take her to Scotland, 
 to see some friends of her family, and travel 
 through the Highlands. As she was driven 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 23 
 
 off from the gateway of the Cross Keys, 
 nodding and smiling from the chaise-win- 
 dow in turning the corner, the landlady 
 ceased from commanding the postboy on 
 no account to go beyond the brow, and 
 said to herself that this Miss Pickard was 
 the most wilful young lady she had ever 
 known, but that she could not help liking 
 her, too. She did not seem to value her 
 life any more than a pin; and yet she 
 appeared altogether cheerful and sensible. 
 If the £:ood woman had been able to see 
 into Mary's heart, she would have discov- 
 ered that she had the best reason in the 
 world for valuing life very much indeed : 
 but she had been so accustomed, all her 
 life, to help every body that needed it, that 
 she naturally went straight forward into the 
 business, without looking at difficulties or 
 dangers, on the right hand or the left. 
 
 Mary never, while she lived, forgot this 
 drive. Her tone of mind was, no doubt, 
 high, though she was unconscious of it. It 
 was a splendid August evening, and she 
 had never before seen moorland. In Amer- 
 
24 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 ica, slie had travelled among noble inland 
 forests, and a hard granite region near the 
 coasts of New England; but the wide- 
 spreading brown and green moorland, with 
 its pools of clear brown water glittering in 
 the evening sunshine, and its black-cocks 
 popping out of the heather, and running 
 into the hollows, was quite new to her. 
 She looked down, two or three times, into 
 a wooded dell where gray cottages were 
 scattered among the coppices, and a little 
 church-tower rose above them ; but the 
 swellins: rida:es of the moor, with the tarns 
 between, immediately attracted her eye 
 again. 
 
 " Surely," thought she, " the cordon will 
 let me walk on the moor in the afternoons, 
 if I go where I cannot infect any body. 
 With a walk in such places as these every 
 day, I am sure I could go through any 
 thing." 
 
 This seemed very rational beforehand. 
 It never entered Mary's head, that, for a 
 long time to come, she should never once 
 have leisure for a walk. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 25 
 
 " Yon 's the cordon," said the postboy, 
 at last, pointing with his whip. 
 
 " What do you understand by a cordon?" 
 
 " Them people that you may see there. 
 I don't know why they call them so ; for I 
 don't hear that they do any thing with a 
 cord." 
 
 " Perhaps it is because there is a French 
 word — cordon — that means any thing 
 that incloses any other thing. They would 
 call your hat-band a cordon, and an offi- 
 cer's sash, and a belt of trees round a park. 
 So, I suppose these people surround poor 
 Bleaburn and let nobody out." 
 
 " May be so," said the man, " but I don't 
 see why we should go to the French for 
 our words or any thing else, when we have 
 every thing better of our own. For my 
 part, I shall be beholden to the French for 
 no word, now I know of it. I shall call 
 thorn people the watch, or something of 
 that like." 
 
 " I think I will call them messengers," 
 said Mary ; " and that will sound less ter- 
 rible to the people below. They do go on 
 
26 
 
 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 errands, do not they, — and take and send 
 parcels and messages ? " 
 
 " They are paid to do it, Miss but thev 
 put it upon one another, or get out of the 
 way, if they can, — they are so afraid of 
 the fever, you see. — I think we must stop 
 here, please, Miss. I could go a little 
 nearer, only, you see — " 
 
 " I see that you are afraid of the fever 
 too," said Mary, with a smile, as she 
 jumped out upon the grass. One of the 
 sentinels was within hail. Glad of the 
 relief from the dulness of his watch, he 
 came with alacrity, took charge of the lit- 
 tle trunk, and offered to show the lady, 
 from the brow, the way down the hollow 
 to the village. 
 
 The postboy stood, with his money in 
 his hand, watching the retreating lady, till, 
 under a sudden impulse, he hailed her. 
 Looking round, she saw him running jto- 
 wards her, casting a momentary glance 
 back at his horses. He wanted to try once 
 
 more to persuade her to return to O 
 
 He should be so happy to drive her back, 
 
& 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 27 
 
 out of the way of danger. His employer 
 would be so glad to see her again ! When 
 he perceived that it was no use talking, he 
 went on touching his hat, while he begged 
 her to take back the shilling she had just 
 civen hirn. It would make his mind easi- 
 er, he said, not to take money for bringing 
 any lady to such a place. Mary saw that 
 this was true ; and she took back the shil- 
 ling, promising that it should be spent in 
 the service of some poor sick person. 
 
 As Mary descended into the hollow, she 
 was struck with the quiet beauty of the 
 scene. The last sun-blaze rushed level 
 along the upper part of the cleft, while the 
 lower part lay in deep shadow. While she 
 was descending a steep slope, with some- 
 times grass and sometimes gray rock by 
 the roadside, the opposite height rose pre- 
 cipitous ; and from chinks in its brow lit- 
 tle drips of water fell or oozed down, call- 
 ing into life ferns, and grass, and ivy, in 
 every moist crevice. Near the top there 
 were rows of swallow-holes ; and the birds 
 were at this moment all at play in the last 
 
28 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 glow of the summer day, now dipping into 
 the shaded dell, down to the very surface 
 of the water, and then sprinkling the gray 
 precipice with their darting shadows. Be- 
 low, when Mary reached the bridge, she 
 thought all looked shadowy in more senses 
 than one. The first people she saw were 
 some children, excessively dirty, who were 
 paddling about in a shallow pool, which 
 was now none of the sweetest, having been 
 filled by the spring overflow, and gradually 
 drying up ever since. Mary called to these 
 children from the bridge, to ask where 
 Widow Johnson lived. She could learn 
 nothing more than that she must proceed; 
 for, if the creatures had not been almost 
 too boorish to speak, she could have made 
 nothing of the Yorkshire dialect, on the 
 first encounter. In the narrow street, every 
 window seemed closed, and even the shut- 
 ters of some. She could see nobody in the 
 first two or three shops that she passed; 
 but at the baker's a woman was sitting at 
 work. On the entrance of a stranger, she 
 looked up in surprise; and when at the 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 29 
 
 door, to point out the turn down to Widow- 
 Johnson's, she remained there, with her 
 work on her arm, to watch the lady up the 
 street. The doctor, quickening his pace, 
 came up, saying, — 
 
 " Who was that you were speaking to ? 
 — A lady wanting Widow Johnson ! What 
 a very extraordinary thing ! Did you tell- 
 her the fever had got there ? " 
 
 " Yes, Sir." 
 
 " What did she say ? " 
 
 " She said she must go and nurse them." 
 
 " Do you mean that she is going to stay 
 here?" 
 
 " I suppose so, by her talking of nursing 
 them. She says Widow Johnson is her 
 aunt." 
 
 « O, that 's it ! I have heard that Mrs. 
 Johnson came of a good family. But what 
 a good creature this must be, — that is, if 
 she knows what she is about. If she is off 
 before morning, I shall think it was a vis- 
 ion, dropped down out of the clouds. Eh ? " 
 
 " She is not handsome enough to be an 
 angel, or any thing of that kind," said the 
 baker's wife. 
 
30 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 " O, is n't slu* ? I did not see her face. 
 But it is all the better if she is not very 
 like an angel. She is all the more likely 
 to stay and nurse the Johnsons. Upon 
 my word, they are lueky people if she does. 
 I must go and pay my respects to her pres- 
 ently. — Do look, now, at the doors all 
 along the street, on both sides of the way ! 
 I have not seen so many people at once for 
 weeks past; — for, you know, I have no 
 time to go to church in these days." 
 
 " You would not see many people if you 
 went. See I some of the children are fol- 
 lowing her! It is long since they have 
 seen a young lady, in a white gown, and 
 with a smile ou her face, in our street. 
 There she goes, past the corner; she has 
 taken the right turn.'* 
 
 " I will just let her get the meeting over, 
 and settle herself a little," said the doctor ; 
 " and then I will go and pay my respects 
 to her." 
 
 The little rabble of dirty children fol- 
 lowed Mary round the corner, keeping in 
 the middle of the lane and at some dis- 
 
THE TEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 31 
 
 tance behind. When she turned to speak 
 to them, they started and fled, as they 
 might have done if she had been a ghost. 
 But when she laughed, they returned cau- 
 tiously; and all their brown forefingers 
 pointed the same way at once, when she 
 made her final inquiry about which was 
 the cottage she wanted. Two little boys 
 were pushed forward by the rest; and it 
 transpired that these were grandchildren 
 of Widow Johnson. 
 
 « Is she your granny ? " said Mary. 
 « Then I am your cousin. Come with 
 me ; and if granny is very much surprised 
 to see me, you must tell her that I am 
 your cousin Mary." 
 
 The boys, however, had no notion of 
 entering the cottage. They slipped away, 
 and hid themselves behind it; and Mary 
 had to introduce herself. 
 
 After knocking in vain for some time, 
 she opened the door and looked in. No 
 one was in the room but a man, whom she 
 at once recognized for Silly Jem. He was 
 half-standing, half-sitting, against the table 
 
32 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 by the wall, rolling his head from side to 
 side. By no mode of questioning could 
 Mary obtain a word from him. The only 
 thing he did was to throw a great log of 
 wood on the fire, when she observed what 
 a large fire he had. She tried to take it 
 off again ; but this he would not permit. 
 The room was insufferably hot and close. 
 The only window was beside the door ; so 
 that there was no way of bringing a cur- 
 rent of fresh air through the room. Mary 
 tried to open the window ; but it was not 
 made to open, except that a small pane at 
 the top, three inches square, went upon 
 hinges. As soon as Mary had opened it, 
 however, poor Jem went and shut it. With- 
 in this kitchen was a sort of closet for 
 stores ; and this was the whole of the low- 
 er floor. Mary opened one other door, and 
 found within it a steep, narrow stair, down 
 which came a sickening putf of hot, foul 
 air. She went up softly, and Jem slammed 
 the door behind her. It seemed as if it 
 was the business of his life to shut every 
 thing. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 33 
 
 Groping her way, Mary came to a small 
 chamber, which she surveyed for an instant 
 from the stair, before showing herself with- 
 in. There was no ceiling ; and long cob- 
 webs hung from the rafters. A small win- 
 dow, two feet from the floor, and curtained 
 with a yellow and tattered piece of muslin, 
 was the only break in the wall. On the 
 deal table stood a phial or two, and a 
 green bottle, which was presently found to 
 contain rum. A turn-up bedstead, raised 
 only a foot from the floor, was in a corner ; 
 and on it lay some one who was very rest- 
 less, feebly throwing off" the rug, which was 
 immediately replaced by a sleepy woman 
 who dozed between times in a chair that 
 boasted a patchwork cushion. Mary doubt- 
 ed whether the large black eyes which 
 stared forth from the pillow had any sense 
 in them. She went to see. 
 
 " Aunty," said she, going to the bed, 
 and gently taking one of the wasted hands 
 that lay outside. " I am come to nurse 
 you." 
 
 The poor patient made a strong effort to 
 
 3 
 
34 SICKNESS AND IIKALTH OF 
 
 collect herself and to speak. She did not 
 want any body. She sliould do very well. 
 This was no place for strangers. She was 
 too ill to see strangers, and so on ; but, 
 from time to time, a few wandering words 
 about her knowing best how to choose a 
 husband for herself, — her having a right 
 to marry as she pleased, — or of insisting 
 that her relations would go their own way 
 in the world, and leave her hers, — showed 
 Mary that she was recognized, and what 
 feelings she had to deal with. 
 
 " She knows where I came from ; but 
 she takes me for my mother or my grand- 
 mother," thought sh^. " If she grows clear 
 in mind, we shall be friends on our own 
 account. If she remains delirious, she will 
 become used to the sight of me. I must 
 take matters into my own hands at once." 
 
 The first step was difficult. Coolness 
 and fresh air were wanted above every 
 thing. But there was no chimney; the 
 window would not open ; poor Jem would 
 not let any door remain open for a mo- 
 ment; and the sleepy neighbor was one of 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABITRN. 35 
 
 those who insist npon warm bed-clothes, 
 large fires, and hot spirit and water, in fever 
 cases. She was got rid of by being paid 
 to find somebody who would go for Mary's 
 trunk, and bring it here before dark. She 
 did her best to administer another dose of 
 rum before she tied on her bonnet; but as 
 the patient turned away her head with dis- 
 gust, Mary interposed her hand. The dram 
 was offered to her, and, as she would not 
 have it, the neighbor showed the only cour- 
 tesy then possible, by drinking Mary's health, 
 and welcome to Bleaburn. The woman had 
 some sharpness. She could see that if she 
 took Jem with her, and put the trunk on 
 his shoulder, she should get the porter's fee 
 herself, instead of giving it to some rude 
 boy ; and, as Mary observed, would be do- 
 ing a kindness to Jem in taking him for a 
 pleasant evening walk. Thus the coast 
 was cleared. In little more than half an 
 hour they would be back. Mary made the 
 most of her time. 
 
 She set the doors below wide open, and 
 lowered the fire. She would fain have put 
 
36 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 on some water to boil, for it appeared to 
 her that every body and every thing want- 
 ed washing extremely. But she could find 
 no water but some which seemed to have 
 been used, — which was, at all events, not 
 fit for use now. For water she must wait 
 till somebody came. About air, she did 
 one thing more, — a daring thing. She 
 had a little diamond ring on her finger. 
 With this, without noise and quickly, she 
 cut so much of two small panes of the 
 chamber window as to be able to take 
 them clean out; and then she rubbed the 
 neighboring panes bright enough to hide, 
 as she hoped, an act which would be 
 thought mad. When she looked round 
 again at Aunty, she could fancy that there 
 was a somewhat clearer look about the 
 worn face, and a little less dulness in the 
 eye. But this might be because she her- 
 self felt less sick now that fresh air was 
 breathing up the stairs. 
 
 There was something else upon the 
 stairs, — the tread of some one coming up. 
 It was the doctor. He said he came to 
 
THE TEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 37 
 
 pay his respects to the lady before him, as 
 well as to visit his patient. It was no sea- 
 son for losing time, and doctor and nurse 
 found in a minute that they should agree 
 very well about the treatment of the pa- 
 tient. Animated by finding that he should 
 no longer be wholly alone in his terrible 
 wrestle with disease and death, the doctor 
 did things which he could not have be- 
 lieved he should have courage for. He 
 even emptied out the rum-bottle and hurled 
 it away into the bed of the stream. The 
 last thing he did was to turn up his cuffs, 
 and actually bring in two pails of water 
 with his own hands. He promised (and 
 kept his promise) to send his boy with a 
 supply of vinegar, and a message to the 
 neighbor that she was wanted elsewhere, 
 that Mary might have liberty to refresh the 
 patient, without being subject to the charge 
 of murdering her. " A charge, however," 
 said he, " which I fully expect will be 
 brought against any one of us who knows 
 how to nur^e. I confess they have cowed 
 me. In sheer despair, I have let them take 
 
38 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 their own way pretty much. But now we 
 must see what can be done." 
 
 *' Yes," said Mary. " It is fairly our 
 turn now. We must try how we can cow 
 the fever." 
 
THE PEOrLE OF BLEABURN. 39 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Mr. Finch was standing in front of his 
 bookcase, deeply occupied in ascertaining 
 a point in ecclesiastical history, when he 
 was told that Ann Warrender wished to 
 speak to him. 
 
 " O dear ! " he half-breathed out. He 
 had for some time been growing nervous 
 about the state of things at Bleaburn ; and 
 there was nothing he now liked so little as 
 to be obliged to speak face to face with 
 any of the people. It was not all coward- 
 ice ; though cowardice made up sadly too 
 much of it. He did not very well know 
 how to address the minds of his people; 
 and he felt that he could not do it well. 
 He was more fit for closet study than for 
 the duties of a parish priest ; and he ought 
 
40 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 never to have been sent to Bleaburn. Here 
 he was, however; and there was Ann War- 
 render waiting in the passage to speak to 
 him. 
 
 " Dear me ! " said he, " I am really very 
 busy at this moment. Ask Ann Warren- 
 der if she can come again to-morrow." 
 
 To-morrow would not do. Ann followed 
 the servant to the door of the study to say 
 so. Mr. Finch hastily asked her to wait a 
 moment, and shut the door behind the ser- 
 vant. He unlocked a cupboard, took out a 
 green bottle and a wineglass, and fortified 
 himself against infection with a draught of 
 something whose scent betrayed him to Ann 
 the moment the door was again opened. 
 
 " Come in," said he, when the cupboard 
 was locked. 
 
 " Will you please come. Sir, and see 
 John Billiter ? He is not far from death; 
 he asked for you just now; so I said I 
 would step for you." 
 
 " Billiter! The fever lias been very fatal 
 in that house, has it not? Did not he lose 
 two children last week? " 
 
THE PEOrLE OF BLEABURN. 41 
 
 " Yes, Six; and my father thinks the other 
 two are beghiiiing to sicken. I 'nm sure T 
 don't know what will become of them. I 
 saw Mrs. BiUiter stagger as she crossed 
 the room just now ; and she does not seem, 
 somehow, to be altogether like herself this 
 morning. That looks as if she were begin- 
 ning. But if you will come and pray with 
 them, Sir, that is the comfort they say they 
 want." 
 
 " Does your father allow you to go to an 
 infected house like that ? " asked Mr. Fi/ich. 
 " And does he go himself? " 
 
 Ann looked sm'prised, and said she did 
 not see what else could be done. There 
 was no one but her father who could lift 
 John Billiter, or turn him in his bed ; and 
 as for her, she was the only one that Mrs. 
 Billiter had to look to, day and night. The 
 Good Lady went in very often, and did all 
 she could ; but she was wanted in so many 
 places, besides having her hands full with 
 the Johnsons, that she could only come in 
 and direct and cheer them, every few hours. 
 She desired to be sent for at any time, night 
 
42 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 or day ; and they did send when they were 
 particularly distressed, or at a loss; but for 
 regular watc'liing and nursing, Ann said the 
 Billiters had no one to depend on but her- 
 self. She could not stay talking now, 
 however. How soon might she say that 
 Mr. Finch would come ? 
 
 Mr. Finch was now walking up and 
 down the room. He said he would con- 
 sider and let her know as soon as he could. 
 
 "John Billiter is as bad as can be, Sir. 
 He must be very near his end." 
 
 " Ah ! well, you shall hear from me very 
 soon." 
 
 As Ann went away, she wondered what 
 could be the impediment to Mr. Finch's 
 going with her. He, meantime, roused his 
 mind to undertake a great argument of 
 duty. It was with a sense of complacency, 
 even of elevation, that he now set himself 
 to work to consider of his duty, — deter- 
 mined to do it when his mind was made up. 
 
 He afterwards declared that he went to 
 his chamber to be secure against interrup- 
 tion, and there walked up and down for 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 43 
 
 two hours in meditation and prayer. He 
 considered that it had pleased God that he 
 should be the only son of his mother, whose 
 whole life would be desolate if he should 
 die. He thought of Ellen Price, feeling 
 almost sure that she would marry him 
 whenever he felt justified in asking her; 
 and he considered what a life of happiness 
 she would lose if he should die. He re- 
 membered that his praying with the sick 
 would not affect life on the one side, while 
 it might on the other. The longer he 
 thought .of Ellen Price and of his mother, 
 and of all that he might do if he lived, the 
 more clear did his duty seem to himself to 
 become. At the end of the two hours, he 
 was obliged to bring his meditations to a 
 conclusion ; for Ann Warrender's father 
 had been waiting for some time to speak 
 to him, and w^ould then wait no longer. 
 
 " It is not time lost, Warrender," said 
 Mr. Finch, when at last he came down 
 stairs. " I have been determining my prin- 
 ciple, and my mind is made up." 
 
 " Then, Sir, let us be off, or the man will 
 
4t SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 be dead. What! you cannot come, Sir! 
 Why, bless my soul I " 
 
 " You see my reasons, surely, Warren- 
 der." 
 
 " Why, yes ; such as they are. The thing 
 that I can't see the reason for, is your being 
 a clergyman." 
 
 While Mr. Finch was giving forth his 
 amiable and gentlemanly notions of the 
 position of a clergyman in society, and of 
 filial consideration, Warrender was twirling 
 his hat, and fidgeting, as if in haste ; and 
 his summing up was, — 
 
 " I don't know what your mother herself 
 might say, Sir, to your consideration for 
 her; but most likely she has, being a moth- 
 er, noticed that saying about a man leaving 
 father and mother, and houses and lands, 
 
 for Christ's sake ; and also But it is 
 
 no business of rnine to be preaching to the 
 clergyman, and I have enough to do, else- 
 where." 
 
 " One thing more, Warrender. I intrust 
 it to you to let the people know that there 
 will be no service in church durini!: the in- 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 45 
 
 fection. Why, do not you know that, in 
 the time of the plague, the churches were 
 closed by ordei*, because it was found that 
 the people gave one another the disease, by 
 meeting there ? " 
 
 John had never heard it; and he was sor- 
 ry to hear it now. He hastened away to 
 the Good Lady, to ask her if he must really 
 tell the afflicted people that all religious 
 comfort must be withheld from them now, 
 when they were in the utmost need of it. 
 Meantime, Mr. Finch was entering at 
 length in his diary, the history of his con- 
 flict of mind, his decision, and the reasons 
 of it. 
 
 Henceforth, Mr. Finch had less time for 
 his diary, and for clearing up points of ec- 
 clesiastical history. There were so many 
 funerals that he could never be sure of leis- 
 ure ; nor, when he had it, was he in a state 
 to use it. Sometimes he almost doubted 
 whether he was in his right mind, so over- 
 whelmingly dreadful to him was the scene 
 around him. He met Farmer Neale one 
 day. Neale was at his wit's end what to 
 
46 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 do about his harvest. Several of his labor- 
 ers were dead, and others were kept aloof 
 by his own servants, whd declared they 
 would all leave him if any person from 
 Bleaburn was brought among them ; and 
 no laborers from a distance would come 
 near the place. Farmer Neale saw no 
 other prospect than of his crops rotting on 
 the ground. 
 
 " You must offer high wages," said Mr. 
 Finch. " You must be well aware that 
 you do not generally tempt people into 
 your service by your rate of wages. You 
 must open your hand at such a time as 
 this." 
 
 Neale was ready enough now to give 
 good wages; but nobody would reap an 
 acre of his for love or money. He was told 
 to be thankful that the fever had spared 
 his house ; but he said it was no use bid- 
 ding a man be thankful for any thing, while 
 he saw his crops perishing on the ground. 
 
 Next, Mr. Finch saw, in his afternoon 
 ride, a waiicMi-load of colTms arrive at the 
 brow from O . He saw them sent 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 47 
 
 down, one by one, on men's shoulders, to 
 be ranged in the carpenter's yard. The 
 carpenter could not work fast enough ; and 
 his stock of wood was so nearly exhausted, 
 that there had been complaints, within the 
 last few days, that the coffins would not 
 bear the least shock, but fell to pieces when 
 the grave was opened for the next. So an 
 order was sent to O for coffins of vari- 
 ous sizes ; and now they were carried down 
 the road, and up the street, before the eyes 
 of some who were to inhabit one or an- 
 other of them. The doctor, hurrying from 
 house to house, had hardly a moment to 
 spare, and no comfort to give. He did not 
 see what there was to prevent the whole 
 population from being swept away. He 
 was himself almost worn out; and just at 
 such a moment his surgery boy had disap- 
 peared. He had no one that he could de- 
 pend on to help him in making up the 
 medicines, or even to deliver them. The 
 fact was, he said in private, the place was 
 a pest-house ; and, except to Miss Pickard, 
 he did not know where to look for any aid 
 
48 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 or any hope whatever. It would not do to 
 say so to the people ; but, frankly speaking, 
 this was what he felt. When the pastor's 
 heart was thus sunk very low, he thought 
 he would just pass the Plough and Har- 
 row, and see who was there. If there were 
 any cheerful people in Bleaburn, that was 
 where they would be found. At the Plough 
 and Harrow, the floor was swept and the 
 table was clean ; and the chimney was pret- 
 tily dressed with greeu boughs ; but there 
 were only two customers there ; and they 
 were smoking their pipes in silence. The 
 landlord said the scores w^ere run up so 
 high, he could not give more credit till bet- 
 ter days. The people wanted their draught 
 of comfort badly enough, and he had given 
 it as long as he could ; but he must stop 
 somewhere : and if the baker had to stop 
 scores (as he knew he had) the publican 
 had little chance of getting his own. At 
 such a time, however, he knew men ought 
 to be liberal; so he went on serving purl 
 and bitters at five in the morning. The 
 men said it strengthened their stomachs 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 49 
 
 against the fever before they went to work 
 (such of them as could work), and God for- 
 bid he should refuse them that! But he 
 knew the half of those few that came at 
 five in the morning would never be able to 
 pay their score. Yet did the publican, 
 amidst all these losses, invite the pastor to 
 sit down and have a cheerful glass; and 
 the pastor did not refuse. There was too 
 little cheerfulness to be had at present to 
 justify him in declining any offer of it. So 
 he let the landlord mix his- glass for him, 
 and mix it strong. 
 
 It was easy to make the mixture strong ; 
 but not so easy to have a " cheerful glass." 
 The host had too many dismal stories to 
 tell for that ; and, when he could be divert- 
 ed from the theme of the fate of Bleaburn, 
 it was only to talk of the old king's mad- 
 ness, and the disasters of the war, and the 
 weight of the taxes, and the high price of 
 food, and the riots in the manufacturing 
 districts ; a long string of disasters all un- 
 deniably true. He was just saying that he 
 had been assured that somethins: would 
 4 
 
50 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 soon appear whiclr would explain the ter- 
 rors of the time, when a strange cry was 
 hoard in the street, and a bustle among the 
 neighbors; and then two or three people 
 ran in and exclaimed, with white lips, that 
 there was a fearful sign in the sky. 
 
 There indeed it was, a lustrous thing, 
 shining down into the hollow. Was there 
 ever such a star seen, — as large as a sau- 
 cer, some of the people said, and with a 
 long white tail, which looked as if it was 
 about to sweep all the common stars out of 
 the sky ! The sounds of amazement and 
 fear that ran along the whole street, up and 
 down, brought the neighbors to their doors ; 
 and some to the windows, to try how much 
 they could see from windows that would 
 not open. Each one asked somebody else 
 what it was ; but all agreed that it was a 
 token of judgment, and that it accounted 
 for every thing; the cold spring, the bad 
 crops, the king's illness, the war, and this 
 dreadful sickly autumn. At last they be- 
 thought them of the pastor, and they crowd- 
 ed round him for an explanation. They 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 51 
 
 received one in a tone so faltering as to 
 confirm their fears, though Mr. Finch de- 
 clared that it certainly must be a comet : 
 he had never seen a comet ; but he was 
 confident this must be one, and that it must 
 be very near the earth : — he did not mean 
 near enough to do any harm ; — it was all 
 nonsense talking of comets doing any harm. 
 
 " Will it do us any good. Sir ? " asked 
 the carpenter, sagely. 
 
 " Not that I know of. How should it do 
 us any good ? " 
 
 "Exactly so. Sir: that is what we say. 
 It is there for no good, you may rely upon 
 it: and, for the rest. Heaven knows!" 
 
 " I hope Farmer Neale may be seeing it," 
 observed a man to his neighbor. " It may 
 be a mercy to him, if it is sent to warn 
 him of his hard ways." 
 
 " And the doctor, too. I hope it will take 
 effect upon him," whispered another. The 
 whisper was caught up and spread. " The 
 doctor! the doctor!" everyone said, glan- 
 cing at the comet, and falling to whispering 
 again. 
 
52 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 " What are they saying about the doc- 
 tor?" whispered Mr. Finch to the landlord. 
 « What is the matter about him ? " But 
 the landlord only shook his head, and looked 
 excessively solemn in the yellow light which 
 streamed from his open door. After this, 
 Mr. Finch was very silent, and soon stole 
 away homewards. Some who watched 
 him said that he was more alarmed than 
 he chose to show. And this was true. He 
 was more shaken than he chose to admit 
 to his own mind. He would not have ac- 
 knowledged to himself that he, an educated 
 man, could be afraid of a comet : but, un- 
 nerved before by anxiety of mind, and a 
 stronger dose of spirit and water than he 
 had intended to take, he was as open to 
 impression as in the most timid days of his 
 childhood. As he sat in his study, the 
 bright, silent, steady luminary seemed to be 
 still shining full upon his very heart and 
 brain ; and the shadowy street, with its 
 groups of gazers, was before his eyes ; and 
 the hoarse or whiiiijX'ring voices oT the ter- 
 rified people were in his ear. He covered 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABUKN. 53 
 
 his eyes, and thought that he lived in fear- 
 ful times. He wished he was asleep ; but 
 then there were three funerals for to-mor- 
 row ! He feared he could not sleep, if he 
 went to bed. Yet to sit up would be 
 worse ; for he could not study to-night, and 
 sitting up was the most wearing thing of 
 all to the nerves. Presently he went to his 
 cupboard. Now, if ever, was the time for 
 a cordial ; for how should he do his duty, if 
 he did not get sleep at night, with so many 
 funerals in the morning? So he poured 
 out his medicine, as he called it, and un- 
 corked his laudanum bottle, and obtained 
 the oblivion which is the best comfort of 
 the incapable. 
 
54 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 There were some people in Bleaburn to 
 whom the sign in heaven looked very dif- 
 ferently. On the night when the people 
 assembled in the street to question each 
 other about it, Mary was at the Billiters' 
 house, where, but for her, all would have 
 been blank despair. Mrs. Billiter lay mut- 
 tering all night in the low delirium of the 
 fever; and Mary could not do more for her 
 than go to the side of her mattress now 
 and then, to speak to her, and smooth her 
 pillow, or put a cool hand on her forehead, 
 while one of the dying children hung on 
 the other shoulder. At last, the little fel- 
 low was evidently so near death, that the 
 slightest movement on her j)art might put 
 out the little life. As he lav with his head 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 55 
 
 on her shoulder, his bony arms hanging 
 helpless, and his feet like those of a skeleton 
 across her lap, she felt every painful breath 
 through her whole frame. She happened 
 to sit opposite the window ; and the win- 
 dow, which commanded a part of the 
 brow of the hollow, happened to be open. 
 Wherever the Good Lady had been, the 
 windows would open now ; and, when 
 closed, they were so clear that the sunshine 
 and moonlight could pour in cheerfully. 
 This September night was sultry and dry ; 
 and three fever patients in two little low 
 rooms needed whatever fresh air could be 
 had. There sat Mary, immovable, with 
 her eyes fixed on the brow, from which she 
 had seen more than one star come up, since 
 she last left her seat. She now and then 
 spoke cheerfully to the poor mutterer in the 
 other room, to prevent her feeling lonely, or 
 for the chance of bringing back her thoughts 
 to real things ; and then she had to soothe 
 little Ned, lying on a bed of shavings in 
 the corner, sore and fretful, and needing 
 ihe help that she could not stir to give. 
 
56 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 His feeble cry would have upset any spirits 
 but Mary's ; but her spirits were never 
 known to be upset, though few women 
 have gone through such ghastly scenes, or 
 sustained such tension of anxiety. 
 
 " I cannot conrie to you at this moment, 
 Ned," said she, "but I will soon, — very 
 soon. Do you know why your brother is 
 not crying? He is going to sleep, — for a 
 long quiet sleep. Perhaps he will go to 
 sleep more comfortably if you can stop 
 crying. Do you think you can stop crying, 
 Ned ? " 
 
 The wailing was at once a little less 
 miserable, and by degrees it came to a stop 
 as Mary spoke. 
 
 " Do you know, your little brother will 
 be quite well when he wakes from that 
 long sleep. It will be far away from here, 
 where daddy is." 
 
 " Let me go, too." 
 
 " I think you will go, Ned. If you do, 
 you will not live here any more. You will 
 live where daddy is gone." 
 
 " Will Dan Cobb tease me tlicn ? Dan 
 does tease us so I " 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 57 
 
 Mary had to learn who Dan Cobb was, 
 — a littlo boy next door, who was not in 
 the fever as yet. He was always wanting 
 Ned's top. Would he want Ned's top in 
 that place where they were all going to be 
 well ? 
 
 " No," said Mary ; " and you will not 
 w^ant it, either. When we go to that place, 
 we have no trouble of carrying any thing 
 with us. We shall find whatever we want 
 there." 
 
 "What shall I play at?" 
 
 " I don't know till we go and see ; but I 
 am sure it will be with something better 
 than your top. But, Ned, are you angry 
 with Dan? Do you wish that he should 
 have the fever ? And are you glad or sorry 
 that he has no top ? " 
 
 By this time the crying had stopped ; 
 and Ned, no longer filling his ears with his 
 own wailing, wondered and asked what 
 that odd sound was, — he did not like it. 
 
 " It will soon be over," said Mary, very 
 gently. " It is your brother just going to 
 sleep. Now, lie and think what you would 
 
58 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 say to Dan, if you were going a long way 
 oil] and wliat you would like to be done 
 with your top, when you do not want it 
 yourself. You shall tell nie what you 
 wish when I come to you presently." 
 
 Whether Ned was capable of thinking 
 she could not judge, but he lay quite silent 
 for the remaining minutes of his little 
 brother's life, — a great comfort to Mary, 
 who could not have replied, because the 
 mere vibration of her own voice would 
 now have been enough to stop entirely the 
 breathings which came at longer and longer 
 intervals. Her frame ached, and her arms 
 seemed to have lost power, — so long was 
 it since she had changed her posture. At 
 such a moment it was that the great comet 
 came up from behind the brow. The ap- 
 parition was so wonderful, and so wholly 
 unexpected, that Mary's heart beat ; but it 
 was from no fear, but rather from a kind of 
 exhilaration. Slowly it ascended, proving 
 that it was no meteor, as she had at the 
 first moment conjectured. When the bright 
 tail disclosed itself, she understood the 
 
THE TEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 59 
 
 spectacle, and rejoiced in it, she scarcely 
 knew why. 
 
 When at last the breathing on her shoul- 
 der ceased, she let down the little corpse 
 upon her knee, and could just see, by the 
 faint light from the rush candle in the outer 
 room, that the eyes were half closed, and 
 the face expressive of no pain. She closed 
 the eyes, and, after a moment's silence, 
 said : — 
 
 " Now, Ned, I am coming to you, in a 
 minute." 
 
 " Is he asleep ? " 
 
 " Yes. He is in the quiet, long sleep I 
 told you of." 
 
 Ned feebly tried to make room for his 
 brother on the poor bed of shavings ; and 
 he wondered when Mary said that she was 
 making a bed in the other corner which 
 would do very well. She was only spread- 
 ing mammy's cloak on the ground, and 
 laying her own shawl over the sleeper ; but 
 she said that would do very well. 
 
 Mary was surprised to find Ned's mind 
 so clear, as that he had really been thinking 
 
60 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 about Dan and the top. She truly sup- 
 posed that it was the clearing before death. 
 He said : — 
 
 " You told me daddy was dead. Am I 
 going to be dead ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think so. Would not you like 
 it? — to go to sleep, and then be quite 
 weU ? " 
 
 " But sha'n't I see Dan, then ? " 
 
 " Not for a long time, I dare say : and 
 whenever you do, I don't think you and he 
 will quarrel again. I can give Dan any 
 message, you know." 
 
 " Tell him he may have my top. And 
 tell him I hope he won't have the fever. 
 I 'm sure I don't like it at all. I wish you 
 would take me up, and let me be on your 
 knee." 
 
 Mary could not refuse it, though it was 
 soon to be going over again the scene just 
 closed. Poor Ned was only too light, as to 
 weight ; but he was so wasted and sore 
 that it was not easy to fmd a position for 
 him. For a few minutes he was interested 
 by the comet, which he was easily led to 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 61 
 
 regard as a beautiful sight, and then he 
 begged to be laid down again. 
 
 The sun was just up when Mary heard 
 the tap at the door below, which came 
 every morning at sunrise. She put her 
 head out of the window, and said softly 
 that she was coming, — would be down in 
 two minutes. She laid poor Ned beside 
 his brother, and covered him with the same 
 shawl ; drew off the old sheets and coverlid 
 from the bed of shavings, bundled them up 
 with such towels as were in the room, and 
 put them out of the window, Warrender 
 being below, ready to receive them. She 
 did not venture to let the poor mother see 
 them, delirious as she was. Softly did 
 Mary tread on the floor, and go down the 
 creaking stair. When she reached the 
 street, she drew in, with a deep sigh, the 
 morning air. 
 
 " The poor children's bedding," she said 
 to Warrender. 
 
 " They are gone ? " he inquired. " What, 
 both?" 
 
 " One just before midnight. The other 
 
6SI SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 half an hour ago. And their mother will 
 follow soon." 
 
 " The Lord have mercy upon us," said 
 Warrender, solemnly. 
 
 " I think it is mercy to take a family thus 
 together," replied Mary. " But I think of 
 poor Aunty. If I could find any one to sit 
 here for half an hour, I would go to her, 
 and indeed I much wish it." 
 
 " There is a poor creature would be glad 
 enough to come, ma'am, if she thought you 
 would countenance it. A few words will 
 tell you the case. She is living with Simp- 
 son, the baker's man, w^ithout being his 
 wife. Widow Johnson was very stern with 
 her, and with her daughter, Billiter, for 
 being neighborly with the poor girl, — 
 though people do say that Simpson de- 
 ceived her cruelly. I am sure, if I might 
 fetch Sally, she would come, and be thank- 
 ful ; and—" 
 
 " O, ask her to come and help me I If 
 she has done wrong, that is the more reason 
 why she should do what good she can. 
 How is Ann ? " 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 63 
 
 " Pretty well. Rather worn, as we must 
 all expect to be. She never stood so many 
 hours at the wash-tub, any one day, as she 
 does now every day : but then, as she says, 
 there never was so much reason." 
 
 " And you, yourself ? " 
 
 " I am getting through, ma'am, thank 
 you. I seem to see the end of the white- 
 washing, for one thing. They have sent 
 us more brushes of the right sort from 
 
 O , and I should like, if I could, to get 
 
 two or three boys into training. They 
 might do the outhouses and the lower 
 parts, where there are fewest sick, while I 
 am up stairs. But, for some reason or oth- 
 er, the lads are shy of me. There is some 
 difference already, I assure you, ma'am, 
 both as to sight and smell ; but there might 
 be more, if 1 could get better help." 
 
 " And you are careful, I hope, for Ann's 
 sake, to put all the linen first into a tub of 
 water outside." 
 
 " Yes, surely. I got the carpenter's men 
 to set a row of tubs beside our door, and to 
 promise to change the water once a day. 
 
64 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 I laughed at them for asking if they could 
 catch the fever that way : and they are 
 willing enough to oblige where there 's no 
 danger. Simpson offered to look to our 
 boiler as he goes to the bakehouse, when, 
 as he says, Ann and I ought to be asleep. 
 I let him do it and thank him ; but it is not 
 much that we sleep, or think of sleeping, 
 just now." 
 
 " Indeed," said Mary, " you have had a 
 hard life of it, and without pay or reward, 
 I am afraid. I never saw such — " 
 
 " Why, ma'am," said Warrender, " you 
 are the last person to say those sort of 
 things. However, it is not a time for 
 praising one another, when there are signs 
 in the heaven, and God's wTath on earth." 
 
 " You saw the comet, did you ? How 
 beautiful it is ! It will cheer our watch at 
 nights now. Ah ! you see I don't consider 
 it any thing fearful, or a sign of any thing 
 but that, having a new sort of stars brought 
 before our eyes to admire, we don't under- 
 stand all about the heavens yet, though we 
 know a good deal ; and just so with the 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 65 
 
 H 
 
 fever : it is a sign, not of wrath, as I take it, • 
 but that the people here do not understand 
 how to keep their health. They have lived 
 in dirt, and damp, and closeness, some 
 hungry and some drunken : and when un- 
 usual weather comes, a wet spring and a 
 broiling summer, down they sink under the 
 fever. Do you know, I dare not call this 
 God's wrath." 
 
 Warrender did not like to say it, but the 
 thought was in his mind, \vhy people were 
 left so ignorant and so suffering. Mary 
 was quick at reading faces, and she an- 
 swered the good fellow's mind, while she 
 helped to hoist the bundle of linen on his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " We shall see, Warrender, whether the 
 people can learn by God's teaching. He 
 is giving us a very clear and strong lesson 
 now." 
 
 Warrender touched his hat in silence, 
 and walked away. 
 
 Aunty had for some time been out of 
 danger from the fever, or Mary could not 
 have left her to attend on the Billiters, ur- 
 
 5 
 
6G SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 gent as ^va^^ tlu'ir need. But her weakness 
 was so i^reat that she had to be satisfied to 
 lie still all day in the intervals of Mary's 
 little visits. Poor Jem brought lier this 
 and that, when she asked for it, but lie was 
 more trouble than help, from his incurable 
 determination to shut all doors and win- 
 dows, and keep a roaring fire : he did 
 every thing else, within his power, that his 
 mother desired him, but on these points he 
 was immovable. If ever his mother closed 
 her eyes, he took the opportunity to put 
 more wood on the fire ; and he looked so 
 gi'ievously distressed if requested to take it 
 off again, that at last he was let alone. 
 Mary was fairly accustoming him to occupy 
 himself in bringing pails of water and car- 
 rying away all refuse, when she was sum- 
 moned to the Billiters ; but the hint was 
 given, and the neighbors saw that they 
 need no longer use water three or four 
 times over for washing, while poor Jem 
 was happy to carry it away, rinse the pails, 
 and bring fresh. His cousin IVIary had 
 often of late found him thus engaged : but 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. G7 
 
 this morning he was at home, cowering in 
 a chair. When she set the windows open, 
 he made no practical objection; and the 
 fire was actually out. Mary was not there- 
 fore surprised at Aunty's reply to her in- 
 quiries. 
 
 " I am tolerably easy myself, my dear, 
 but I can't tell what has come over Jem ; 
 it seems to me that somebody must have 
 been giving him drink, he staggered so 
 when he crossed the room half an hour 
 ago; yet I hardly think he would take 
 it, he has such a dislike to every thing 
 strong. What a thing it is that I am 
 lying here, unable to stir to see about it 
 myself I" 
 
 " We will see about it," said Mary, go- 
 ing to poor Jem. " I neither think he 
 would touch drink, nor that any body 
 would play such a trick with him at such 
 a time. No," she went on, when she had 
 felt his pulse and looked well at his face, 
 "it is not drink ; it is illness." 
 
 " The fever," groaned the mother. 
 
 " I think so. Courage, Aunty ! we will 
 
68 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OP 
 
 nurse him well: and the house is whole- 
 some now, you know. You are through 
 the fever : and his chance is a better one 
 than yours, the house is so much more 
 airy, and I have more experience." 
 
 " But, Mary, you cannot go on for ever, 
 without sleep or rest, in this way. What 
 is to be done, I don't see." 
 
 " I do. Aunty. I am very well to-day. 
 To-morrow will take care of itself. I must 
 get Jem to bed ; and if he soon seems to 
 be moaning and restless, you must mind 
 it as little as you can. It is very misera- 
 ble, as you have good reason to know; 
 but — " 
 
 " I know something that you do not, I 
 see," said Aunty. " A more patient crea- 
 ture than my poor Jem does not live in 
 Bleaburn, nor anywhere else." 
 
 " What a good chance that gives him I " 
 observed Mary, " and what a blessing it is, 
 for himself and for you! I must go to my 
 cousin now presently ; and I will send the 
 doctor to see Jem." 
 
 The poor fellow allowed himself to be 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABUK.X. 69 
 
 undressed ; and let his head fall on his bol- 
 ster, as if it could not have kept up a min- 
 ute longer. He was fairly down in the 
 fever. 
 
70 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 That evening Mary felt more at leisure 
 and at rest than for weeks past. There 
 was nothing to be done for Mrs. Billiter 
 but to watch beside her; and the carpenter 
 had had his whispered orders in the street 
 for the cofHns for the two little boys. The 
 mother had asked no questions, and had 
 appeared to be wandering too much to take 
 notice of any thing passing before her eyes. 
 Now she was quiet, and Mary felt the re- 
 lief. She had refreshed herself (and she 
 used to tell, in after years, what such re- 
 freshments were worth) with cold water, 
 and a clean wrapper, and a mutton-chop, 
 sent hot from the Plough and Harrow for 
 the Good Lady (with some wine, which 
 she kept for the convalescents), and she 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 71 
 
 was now sitting back in her chair beside 
 the open window, through which fell a 
 yellow glow of reflected sunshine from the 
 opposite heights. All was profoundly still. 
 When she had once satisfied her conscience 
 that she ought not to be plying her needle 
 because her eyes were strained for want of 
 sleep, she gave herself up to the enjoyment 
 — for she really was capable of enjoyment 
 through every thing — of watching the op- 
 posite precipice ; how the shadow crept up 
 it; and how the sunny crest seemed to 
 grow brighter ; and how the swallows dart- 
 ed past their holes, and skimmed down the 
 hollow once more before night should come 
 on. Struck, at last, by the silence, she 
 turned her head, and was astonished at the 
 change she saw. Her cousin lay quiet, 
 looking as radiant as the sunset itself; her 
 large black eyes shining, unoppressed by 
 the rich light; her long dark hair on each 
 side the wasted face, and waving down to 
 the white hands which lay outside the quilt. 
 Their eyes met, full and clear ; and Mary 
 knew that her cousin's mind was now 
 clear, like the gaze of her eyes. 
 
72 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 « I see it all now," said the dying woman, 
 gently. 
 
 " What do you see, love ? " 
 
 " I see the reason of every thing that I 
 did not understand before." And she be- 
 gan to speak of her life and its events, and 
 went on with a force and clearness, and 
 natural eloquence, — yet more, with a sim- 
 ple piety, — which Mary was wont to speak 
 of afterwards as the finest revelation of a 
 noble soul that she had ever unexpectedly 
 met with. Mrs. Billiter knew that her lit- 
 tle boys were dead; she knew, by some 
 means or other, all the horrors by which 
 she was surrounded; and she knew that 
 she was about to die. Yet the conversa- 
 tion was a thoroughly cheerful one. The 
 faces of both were smiling; the voices of 
 both were lively, though that of the dying 
 woman was feeble. After summing up the 
 experience of her life, and declaring what 
 she expected to experience next, and leav- 
 ing a message for her mother, she said 
 there was but one thing more ; she " should 
 like to receive the sacrament." Mary wrote 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 73 
 
 a note in pencil to Mr. Finch, and sent it 
 by Sally, who had been hovering about 
 ever since the morning, in the hope of be- 
 ing of further use, but who was glad now 
 to get out of sight, that her tears might 
 have way ; for she felt that she was about 
 to lose the only friend who had been kind 
 to her (in a way she could accept) since 
 Simpson had put her off from the promised 
 marriage. 
 
 " She is sorry to part with me," said that 
 dying friend. " Cousin Mary, you do not 
 think, as my mother does, that I have done 
 wrong in noticing Sally, do you ? " 
 
 " No ; I think you did well. And I think 
 your mother will be kind to her, for your 
 sake, from this time forward. Sickness 
 and death open our eyes to many things, 
 you know, cousin." 
 
 " Ay, they do. I see it all now." 
 
 Sally was sorely ashamed to bring back 
 Mr. Finch's message. Well as she knew 
 that time was precious, she lingered with it 
 at the door. 
 
 Mr. Finch was sorry, but he was too 
 
74 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 busy. He hoped he should not be sent for 
 again ; for he could not come. 
 
 " Perhaps, Miss," said Sally, with swim- 
 ming eyes, " it might have been better to 
 send somebody else than me. Perhaps, if 
 you sent somebody else — " 
 
 " I do not think that, Sally. However, if 
 you will remain here, I will go myself. It 
 does not matter what he thinks of me, a 
 stranger in the place ; and perhaps none of 
 his flock could so well tell him that this is 
 a duty which he cannot refuse." 
 
 Mary had not walked up the street for 
 several weeks. Though her good influence 
 was in almost every house, in the form of 
 cleanliness, fresh air, cheerfulness, and hope, 
 she had been seen only when passing from 
 one sick-room to another, among a cluster 
 of houses near her aunt's. She supposed 
 it might be this disuse which made ev- 
 ery thing appear strange ; but it was odd 
 scarcely to feel her limbs when she walked, 
 and to see the people and houses like so 
 many visions. She had no feeling of ill- 
 ness, however, and she said to herself, that 
 
THE PEOrLE OF BLEABURN. 75 
 
 some time or other she should get a good 
 long sleep ; and then every thing would 
 look and feel as it used to do. 
 
 As she passed along the street, the chil- 
 dren at play ran into the houses to say 
 that the Good Lady was coming ; and the 
 healthy and the convalescent came out on 
 their door-steps, to bid God bless her ; and 
 the sick who were sensible enough to know 
 what was going on, bade God bless her 
 from their beds. 
 
 What influence the Good Lady used 
 with the clergyman there is no saying, as 
 the conversation was never reported by 
 either of them; but she soon came back 
 bright and cheerful, saying that Mr. Finch 
 would follow in an hour. She had stepped 
 in at Warrender's, to beg the father and 
 daughter to come and communicate with 
 the dying woman. They would come : 
 and Sally would go, she was sure, and 
 take Ann Warrender's place at the wash- 
 tub at home ; for there were several sick 
 people in want of fresh linen before night. 
 Poor Sally went sobbing through the 
 
76 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 streets. She understood the Good Lady's 
 kindness in sending her away, and on a 
 work of usefuhicss, because she, alas ! could 
 not receive the communion. She was liv- 
 ing in sin ; and when two or three were 
 gathered together in the name of Christ, 
 she must be cast out. 
 
 There was little comfort in the service, 
 unless, as the by-standers hoped, the sick 
 woman was too feeble and too much ab- 
 sorbed in her own thoughts to notice some 
 things that dismayed them. Mrs. Billiter 
 was, indeed, surprised at first at the clergy- 
 man's refusal to enter the chamber. He 
 would come no farther than the door. 
 Mary saw at a glance that he \vas in no 
 condition to be reasoned with, and that she 
 must give what aid she could to get the 
 administration over as decently as possible. 
 Happily, he made the service extremely 
 short. The little that there was, he read 
 wrong: but Mrs. Billiter (and she alone) 
 was not disturbed by this. Whether it was 
 that the deadening of the ear liad begun, 
 or that Mr. Finch spoke indistinctly, and 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 77 
 
 was chewing spices all the time, or that 
 the observance itself was enough for the 
 poor woman, it seemed all right with her. 
 She lay with her eyes still shining, her 
 wasted hands clasped, and a smile on her 
 face, quite easy and content; and when 
 Mr. Finch was gone, she told Mary again 
 that she saw it all now, and was quite 
 ready. She was dead within an hour. 
 
 As for Warrender, he was more dis- 
 turbed than any one had seen him since 
 the breaking out of the fever. 
 
 " Why, there it is before his eyes in the 
 Prayer-book," said he, " that clergymen 
 ' shall diligently from time to time (but 
 especially in the time of pestilence, or other 
 infectious sickness) exhort their parishion- 
 ers to the often receiving of the holy com- 
 munion': and instead of this, he even 
 shuts up the church on Sundays." 
 
 " He is not the first who has done that," 
 said Mary. " It was done in times of 
 plague, as a matter of precaution." 
 
 " But, Miss, should not a clergyman go 
 all the more among the people, and not the 
 
78 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 less, for their having no comfort of wor- 
 ship ? " 
 
 " Certainly : but you see how it is with 
 Mr. Finch, and you and I cannot alter it. 
 He has taken a panic ; and I am sure he is 
 the one most to be pitied for that. I can 
 tell you, too, between ourselves, that Mr. 
 Finch judges himself, at times, as severely 
 as we can judge him ; and is more unhap- 
 py about being of so little use to his people 
 than his worst enerhy could wish him.'' 
 
 " Then, ma'am, why does not he pluck 
 up a little spirit, and do his duty?" 
 
 " He has been made too soft, he says, 
 by a fond mother, who is always sending 
 him cordials and spices against the fever. 
 We must make some allowance, and look 
 another way. Let us be thankful that you 
 and Ann are not afraid. If our poor neigh- 
 bors have not all that we could wish, they 
 have clean bedding and clothes, and lime- 
 washed rooms, fresh and sweet compared 
 with any thing they have known before." 
 
 " And," thought Warrender, though he 
 did not say it, but only touched his hat as 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 79 
 
 he went after his business, " one as good 
 as any clergyman to pray by their bedsides, 
 and speak cheerfully to them of what is to 
 come. When I go up the stair, I might 
 know who is praying by the cheerfulness of 
 the voice. I never saw such a spirit in any 
 woman, — never. I have never once seen 
 her cast down, ever so little. If there is a 
 tear in her eye, for other people's sake, 
 there is a smile on her lips, because her 
 heart tells her that every thing that happens 
 is all right." 
 
 This night Mary was to have slept. She 
 herself had intended it, warned by the 
 strange feelings which had come over her 
 as she walked up the street : and it would 
 gratify Aunty's feelings that the corpse 
 should not be left. She intended to lie 
 down and sleep beside the still and un- 
 breathing form of the cousin whose last 
 hours had been so beautiful in her eyes. 
 But Aunty's feelings were now tried in 
 another direction. Unable to move. Aunty 
 was sorely distressed by Jem's moanings 
 and restlessness ; and Mary was the only 
 
80 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 one who could keep him quiet in any de- 
 gree. So, without interval, she went to 
 her work of nursing again. Next, the fu- 
 neral of Mrs. Billiter, and two or three 
 more, fixed for the same day, were put off*, 
 because Mr. Finch was ill. And when Mr. 
 Finch was ill, he sent to beg the Good 
 Lady to come immediately and nurse him. 
 After writing to his own family, to desire 
 some of them to come and take charge of 
 him, she did go to him : but not to remain 
 day and night, as she did with the poor 
 who had none to help them. She saw that 
 all was made comfortable about him, gave 
 him his medicines at times, and always 
 spoke cheerfully. But it was as she saw 
 from the beginning. He was dying of fear, 
 and of the intemperate methods of precau- 
 tion which he had adopted, and of dissatis- 
 faction with himself. His nervous depres- 
 sion from the outset was such as to pre- 
 dispose him to disease, and to allow him 
 no chance under it. He was sinking when 
 his mother and sister arrived, pale and tear- 
 ful, to nurse him : and it did no good that 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 81 
 
 they isolated the house, and locked the 
 doors, and took things in by the window, 
 after being fumigated by a sentinel outside. 
 The doctor laughed as he asked them 
 whether they would not be. more glad to 
 see him, if he came down the chimney, in- 
 stead of their having to unlock the door for 
 him. He wondered they had not a vinegar 
 bath for him to go overhead in, before en- 
 tering their presence. The ladies thought 
 this shocking levity ; and they did not con- 
 ceal their opinion. The doctor then spoke 
 gravely enough of the effects of fear on the 
 human frame. With its effects on the con- 
 science, and on the peace of the mind, he 
 said he had nothing to do. That was the 
 department of the physician of souls. (His 
 hearers were unconscious of the mournful 
 satire conveyed in these words.) His busi- 
 ness was with the efiiect of fear on the 
 nerves and brain, exhausting through them 
 the resources of life. He declared that 
 Mr. Finch would probably have been well 
 at that moment, if he had gone about as 
 freely as other persons among the sick, 
 
 6 
 
82 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 more interested in getting them well than 
 afraid of being ill himself; and, for con- 
 firmation, he pointed to the Good Lady 
 and the Warrenders, wlio had now for two 
 months rnn all sorts of risks, and showed 
 no sign of fever. They were fatigued, he 
 said; too much so; as he was himself; 
 and something must be done to relieve 
 Miss Pickard especially ; but — " 
 
 " Who is she ? " inquired the ladies. 
 " Why is she so prominent here ? " 
 
 " As for who she is," replied he, " I only 
 know that she is an angel." 
 
 " Come down out of the clouds, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 " Something very like it. She dropped 
 into our hollow one August evening, — no- 
 body knows whence nor why. As for her 
 taking the lead here, I imagine it is because 
 there was nobody else to do it." 
 
 " But has she saved many lives, do you 
 think?" 
 
 " Yes, of some that are too young to be 
 aware what they owe her ; and of some yet 
 unborn. She could not do much for those 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 83 
 
 who were down in the fever before she 
 came: except, indeed, that it is much to 
 give them a sense of relief and comfort of 
 body (though short of saving life) and peace 
 of mind, and cheerfulness of heart. But 
 the great consequences of her presence are 
 to come. When I see the great change 
 that is taking place in the cottages here, 
 and in the clothes of the people, and their 
 care of their skins, and their notions about 
 their food, I feel disposed to believe that 
 this is the last plague that will ever be 
 known in Bleaburn." 
 
 " Plague ! O horrid ! " exclaimed the shud- 
 dering sister. 
 
 " Call it what you will," the doctor replied. 
 « The name matters little when the thing 
 makes itself so clear. Yes, by the way, it 
 may matter much with such a patient as 
 we have within there. Pray, whatever you 
 do, don't use the word ' plague ' within his 
 hearing. You must cheer him up; only 
 that you sadly want cheering yourselves. 
 I think an hour a day of the Good Lady's 
 smile would be the best prescription for 
 you all." 
 
84 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 "Do you think she would come? We 
 should be so obliged to her if she would I" 
 
 " And she should have a change of dress 
 lying ready in the passage-room," declared 
 the young lady. " I think she is about my 
 size. Do ask her to come." 
 
 " When I see that she is not more want- 
 ed elsewhere," replied the doctor. " I need 
 not explain, however, that that smile of hers 
 is not an elTect without a cause. If wc 
 could find out whether we have any thing 
 of the same cause in ourselves, we might 
 have a cheerfulness of our own, without 
 troubling her to come and give us some." 
 
 The ladies thought this odd, and did not 
 quite understand it, and agreed that they 
 should not like to be merry and unfeeling 
 in a time of affliction ; so they cried a great 
 deal when they were not in the sick-room. 
 They derived some general idea, however, 
 from the doctor's words, that cheerfulness 
 was good for the patient; and they kept 
 assuring him, in tones of forced vivacity, 
 that there was no danger, and that the doc- 
 tor said he would be well very soon. The 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 85 
 
 patient groaned, remembering the daily fu- 
 nerals of the layt few weeks; and the only 
 consequence was that he distrusted the doc- 
 tor. He sank more rapidly than any other 
 fever patient in the place. In a newspaper 
 paragraph, and on a monumental tablet, 
 he was described as a martyr to his sacred 
 office in a season of pestilence ; and his 
 family called on future generations to honor 
 him accordingly. 
 
 " I am sorry for the poor young man," 
 observed the host at the Plough and Har- 
 row ; " he did very well while nothing went 
 wrong; but he had no spirit for trying 
 times." 
 
 " Who has ? " murmured Farmer Neale. 
 " Any man's heart may die within him that 
 looks into the churchyard now." 
 
 " There 's a woman's that does not," ob- 
 served the host ; " I saw the Good Lady 
 crossing the churchyard this very morning, 
 with a basket of physic bottles on her 
 arm — " 
 
 " Ah ! she goes to help to make up the 
 medicines every day now," the hostess ex- 
 
86 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 plained, "since tlie people began to suspect 
 foul play in their physic." 
 
 " Well ; she came across the bit of grass 
 that is left, and looked over the rows of 
 graves, — not smiling exactly, but as if there 
 was not a sad thought from top to bottom 
 of her n)ind, — much as she might look if 
 she was coming away from her own wed- 
 ding." 
 
 " What is that about ' sweet hopes,' in 
 the newspaper?" asked Neale; "about some 
 ' sweet hopes' that Mr. Finch had? Was 
 he going to be married ? " 
 
 " By that, I should think he was in love," 
 said the host : " and that may excuse 
 some backwardness in coming forward, you 
 know." 
 
 " The Good Lady is to be married, when 
 she gets home to America," the hostess de- 
 clared. " Yes, 't is true. Widow Johnson 
 told the doctor so." 
 
 " What ivill her lover say to her risking 
 her life, and spending her time in siich a 
 way, here ? " said Neale. 
 
 " She tells her aunt that he will only wish 
 
TllE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 87 
 
 he was here to help her. He is a clergy- 
 man. ' O,' says she, * he will only wish he 
 was here to help us.' " 
 
 " I am sm-e I wish he was," sighed Neale. 
 " I wonder what sort of a man will be sent 
 us next. I hope he will be something un- 
 like poor Ml*. Finch." 
 
 " I think you will have your wish," said 
 the landlord. " No man of Mr. Finch's 
 sort would be likely to come among us at 
 such a time." 
 
88 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OP 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The new clergyman was, as the landlord 
 had supposed he would be, a very different 
 person from Mr. Finch. If he had not been 
 a fearless man, he would not have come : 
 much less would he have brought his wife, 
 which he did. The first sight of this re- 
 spectable couple, middle-aged, business-like, 
 and somewhat dry in their manner, tended 
 to give sobriety to the tone of mind of the 
 Bleaburn people ; a sobriety which was 
 more and more wanted from day to day; 
 while certainly the aspect of Bleaburn was 
 enough to discourage the new residents, let 
 their expectations have been as dismal as 
 they might. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Kirby arrived when Blea- 
 burn was at its lowest point of depression 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 89 
 
 and woe. The churchyard was now so full 
 that it could not be made to hold more ; 
 and ten or eleven corpses were actually lying 
 unburied, infecting half a dozen cottages, 
 from this cause. There was an actual 
 want of food in the place, — so few were 
 able to earn wages. Farmer Neale did all 
 he could to tempt his neighbors to work for 
 him; for no strangers would come near a 
 place which was regarded as a pesthouse ; 
 but the strongest arm had lost its strength ; 
 and the men, even those who had not had 
 the fever, said they felt as if they could nev- 
 er work again. The women went on, as 
 habitual knitters do, knitting early and late, 
 almost night and day ; but there was no 
 sale. Even if their wares were avouched 
 to have been passed through soap and wa- 
 ter before they were brought to O , still 
 
 no one would run the slightest risk for the 
 sake of hose and comforters ; and week 
 after week, word was sent that nothing was 
 sold : and at last, that it would be better 
 not to send any more knitted goods. In 
 the midst of all this distress, there was no 
 
90 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 one to speak to the people ; no one to keep 
 their minds clear and their hearts steady. 
 For many weeks, there had not been a 
 prayer publicly read, nor a psalm sung. 
 Meanwhile, the great comet appeared night- 
 ly, week after week. It seemed as if it 
 would never go away; and there was a 
 general persuasion that the comet was sent 
 for a sign to Bleaburn alone, and not at all 
 for the rest of the earth, or of the universe ; 
 and that the fever would not be stayed 
 while the sign remained in the sky. It 
 would have been well if this had been the 
 worst. The people, always rude, were now 
 growing desperate ; and they found, as des- 
 perate people usually do, an object near at 
 hand to vent their fury upon. They said 
 that it was the doctor's business to make 
 them well : that he had not made them well : 
 that so many had died, that any body might 
 see how foul means had been used; and 
 that at last some of the doctor's tricks had 
 come out. Two of Dick Taylor's children 
 had been all but choked, by some of the 
 doctor's physic ; and they might have died, 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 91 
 
 if the Good Lady had not chanced to have 
 been there at the moment, and known what 
 to do. And the doctor tried to get off' with 
 saying that it was a mistake, and that that 
 physic was never made to* go down any 
 body's throat. They said, too, that it was 
 only in this doctor's time that there had 
 been such a fever. There was none such 
 in the late doctor's time ; nor now, in other 
 places, — at least, not so bad. It was noth- 
 ing like so bad at O . The doctor had 
 
 spoken lightly of the comet : he had made 
 old Nan Dart burn the bedding that her 
 grandmother left her, — the same that so 
 many of her family had died on : and, 
 though he gave her new bedding, it could 
 never be the same to her as the old. But 
 there was no use talking. The doctor was 
 there to make them well; and instead of 
 doing that, he made two out of three die, 
 of those that had the fever. Such grum- 
 blings broke out into storm ; and when Mr. 
 and Mrs. Kirby descended into the hollow 
 which their friends feared would be their 
 tomb, they found the whole remaining pop- 
 
92 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 ulation of the place blocking up the street 
 before the doctor's house, and smasliing his 
 phials, and making a pile of his pill-boxes 
 and little drawers, as they were handed out 
 of his surgery window. A woman had 
 brought a candle at the moment to fire the 
 pill-boxes : and she kneeled down to apply 
 the flame. The people had already broken 
 bottles enough to spill a good deal of queer 
 stuff; and some of this stuff was so queer 
 as to blaze up, half as high as the houses, 
 as quick as thought. The flame ran along 
 the ground, and spread like magic. The 
 people fled, supposing this the doings of 
 the comet and the doctor together. Off 
 they went, up and down, and into the 
 houses whose doors were open. But the 
 woman's clothes were on fire. She would 
 have run too ; but Mr. Kirby caught her 
 arm, and his firm grasp made her stand, 
 while Mrs. Kirby wrapped her camlet cloak 
 about the part that was on fire. It was so 
 quickly done, in such a moment of time, that 
 the poor creature was not much burned, — 
 not at all dangerously ; and the new pas- 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 93 
 
 tor was at once informed of the character 
 of the charge he had undertaken. 
 
 That very evening Warrender was sent 
 through the viUage, as crier, to give a no- 
 tice, to which every ear was open. Mr. 
 Kirby having had medical assurance that 
 it was injurious to the public health that 
 more funerals should take place in the 
 churchyard, and that the bodies should lie 
 unburied, would next day bury the dead 
 above the brow, on a part of Furzy Knoll, 
 selected for the purpose. For any thing 
 unusual about this proceeding, Mr. Kirby 
 would be answerable, considering the pres- 
 ent state of the village of Bleaburn. A 
 wagon would pass through the village at 
 six o'clock the next morning; and all who 
 had a coffin in their houses were requested 
 to bring it out, for solemn conveyance to 
 the new burial-ground : and those who 
 wished to attend the interment must be 
 on the ground at eight o'clock. 
 
 All ears were open again the next morn- 
 ing, when the cart made its slow progress 
 down the street ; and some went out to see. 
 
•94 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 It was starlight: and from the east came 
 enough of dawn to show how the vehicle 
 looked with the pall thrown over it. Now 
 and then, as it passed a space between the 
 houses, a puff of wind blew aside the edge 
 of the pall, and then the coflins were seen 
 within, ranged one upon another, — quite 
 a load of them. It stopped for a minute 
 at the bottom of the street ; and it was a 
 relief to the listeners to hear Warrender 
 tell the driver that there were no more, and 
 that he might proceed up to the brow. Af- 
 ter watching the progress of the cart till it 
 could no longer be distinguished from the 
 wall of gray rock along which it was as- 
 cending, those who could be spared from 
 tending the sick put on such black as they 
 could muster, to go to the service. 
 
 It was, happily, a fine morning ; — as 
 fine a November morning as could be seen. 
 It is not often that weather is of so much 
 consequence as it was to the people of 
 Blcaburn to-day. They could not them- 
 selves have told how it was that they came 
 down from the awful service at Furzy Knoll 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 95 
 
 SO much more light-hearted than they went 
 up ; and when some of them were asked 
 the reason, by those who remained below, 
 they could not explain it, — but, somehow, 
 every thing looked brighter. It was, in fact, 
 not merely the calm sunshine on the hills, 
 and the quiet shadows in the hollows ; it 
 was not merely the ruddy tinge of the au- 
 tumn ferns on the slopes, or the lively hop 
 and flit of the wagtail about the spring- 
 heads and the stones in the pool ; it was 
 not merely that the fine morning yielded 
 cheering influences like these, but that it 
 enabled many, who would have been kept 
 below by rain, to hear what their new pas- 
 tor had to say. After going through the 
 burial service very quietly, and waiting with 
 a cheerful countenance while the business 
 of lowering so many coflins by so few 
 hands was effected, he addressed, in a plain 
 and conversational style, those who were 
 present. He told them that he had never 
 before witnessed an interment like this; 
 and he did not at all suppose that either he 
 or they should see such another. Indeed, 
 
96 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 lic'iu-eforth any fuiirrals must take place 
 witliout delay ; as they very well might, 
 now that, on this beautiful spot, there was 
 room \vithout limit. He told them how 
 Farmer Neale had had the space they saw 
 staked out since yesterday, and how it 
 would be fenced in, — roughly, perhaps, but 
 securely, — before night. He hoped and 
 believed the worst of the sickness was over. 
 The cold weather was coming on ; and 
 perhaps, he said with a smile, it might be 
 a comfort to some of them to know that 
 the comet was going away. He could not 
 say for himself that he should not be sorry 
 when it disappeared ; for he thought it a 
 very beautiful sight, and one which remind- 
 ed every eye that saw it how " the heavens 
 declare the glory of God " ; and the wisest 
 men were all agreed that it was a sign, 
 not of any mischief, but of the beauty of 
 God's handiwork in the firmament, as the 
 Scriptures call the starry sky. The fact 
 was, it was found that comets come round 
 regularly, like some of the other stars and 
 om- own moon ; and when a comet had once 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 97 
 
 been seen, people of a future time would 
 know when to look for it again, and would 
 be too wise to be afraid of it. But he had 
 better tell them about such things at anoth- 
 er time, when perhaps they would let their 
 children come up to his house, and look 
 through a telescope, — a glass that magni- 
 fied things so much, that when they saw 
 the stars, they would hardly believe they 
 were the same stars that they saw every clear 
 night. Perhaps they might then think the 
 commonest star as wonderful as any comet. 
 Another reason why they might hope for 
 better health was, that people at a distance 
 now knew more of the distress of Bleaburn 
 than they had done; and he could assure 
 his neighbors, that supplies of nourishing 
 food and wholesome clothing would be 
 lodged with the cordon till the people of 
 the place could once more earn their own 
 living. Another reason why they might 
 hope for better health was, that they were 
 learning by experience what was good for 
 health and what was bad. This was a very 
 serious and important subject, on which he 
 7 
 
98 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 would speak to them again and again, on 
 Sundays and at all times, till he had shown 
 them what he thought about their having, 
 he might almost say, their lives and health 
 in their own hands. He was sure that God 
 had ordered it so; and he expected to be 
 able to prove to them, by and by, that 
 there need to be no fever in Bleaburn if 
 they chose to prevent it. And now, about 
 these Sundays and week-days. He deeply 
 pitied them that they had been cut off from 
 worship during their time of distress. He 
 thought there might be an end to that now. 
 He would not advise their assembling in 
 the church. There were the same reasons 
 against it that there were two months ago ; 
 but there was no place on earth where men 
 might not worship God, if they wished it. 
 If it were now the middle of summer, he 
 should say that the spot they were standing 
 on — even yet so fresh and so sunny — 
 was the best they could have ; but soon the 
 winter winds would blow, and the cold rains 
 would come driving over the hills. This 
 would not do; but there was a warm nook 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 99 
 
 in the hollow, — the crag behind the mill, — 
 where there was shelter from the east and 
 north, and the warmest sunshine ever felt 
 in the hollow, — too hot in summer, but 
 very pleasant now. There he proposed to 
 read prayers three times a week, at an hour 
 which should be arranged according to the 
 convenience of the greatest number; and 
 there he would perform service and preach 
 a sermon on Sundays, when the weather per- 
 mitted. He should have been inclined to 
 ask Farmer Neale for one of his barns, or 
 to propose to meet even in his kitchen ; but 
 he found his neighbors still feared that 
 meeting anywhere but in the open air 
 would spread the fever. He did not him- 
 self believe that one person gave the fever 
 to another; but as long as his neighbors 
 thought so, he would not ask them to do 
 what might make them afraid. Then there 
 was a settling what hours should be ap- 
 pointed for worship at the crag; and the 
 mourners came trooping down into the hol- 
 low, with brightened eyes, and freshened 
 faces, and altogether much less like mourn- 
 ers than when they went up. 
 
100 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 Before night, INIr. Kirby had visited every 
 sick person in the place, in company with 
 the doctor. The poor doctor would hardly 
 have ventured to go his round without the 
 assistance of some novelty that might di- 
 vert the attention of the people from his 
 atrocities. Mr. Kirby did not attempt to 
 get rid of the subject. He told the discon- 
 tented, to their faces, that the doctor knew 
 his business better than they did ; and bade 
 them remember that it was not the doctor, 
 but themselves, that had set fire to spirits 
 of wine, or something of that sort, in the 
 middle of the street, whereby a woman was 
 in imminent danger of being burnt to death ; 
 and that their outrage on the good fame 
 and property of a gentleman who had worn 
 himself half dead with fatigue and anxiety 
 on their account might yet cost them very 
 dear, if it were not understood that they 
 were so oppressed with sorrow and want 
 that they did not know what they were 
 about. Iliri consultations with the doctor 
 from house to house, and liis evident def- 
 erence to him in regard to matters of health 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 101 
 
 and sickness, wrought a great change in a 
 few hours ; and the effect was prodigiously 
 increased when Mrs. Kirby, herself a sur- 
 geon's daughter, and no stranger in a sur- 
 gery, offered her daily assistance in making 
 up the medicines, and administering such 
 as might be misused by those who could 
 not read the labels. 
 
 " That is what the Good Lady does, 
 when she can get out at the right time," 
 observed some pne ; " but now poor Jem is 
 down, and his mother hardly up again yet, 
 it is not every day, «,s she says, that she 
 can go so far out of call." 
 
 " Who is this Good Lady ? " inquired 
 Mr. Kirby. " I have been hardly twenty- 
 four hours in this place, and I seem to 
 have heard her name fifty times ; and yet 
 nobody seems able to say who she is." 
 
 " She almost overpowers their faculties, I 
 believe," replied the doctor; "and, indeed, 
 it is not very easy to look upon her as upon 
 any other young lady. It comes easier to 
 one's tongue to call her an angel than to 
 introduce her as Miss Mary Pickard, from 
 America." 
 
102 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 When he had told what he knew of her, 
 the Kirbys said, in the same breath, 
 
 " Let us go and see her." And the doctor 
 showed them the way to Widow Johnson's, 
 wliere poor Jem was languishing, in that 
 state which is so affecting to witness, when 
 he who has no intellect seems to have more 
 power of patience than he who has most 
 The visitors arrived at a critical moment, 
 however, when poor Jem's distress was very 
 great, and his mother's hardly less. There 
 lay the Good Lady on the ground, doubled 
 up in a strange sort of way ; Mrs. Johnson 
 trying to go to her, but unable ; and Jem, 
 on his bed in the closet within, crying be- 
 cause something was clearly the matter. 
 
 " What 's to do now ? " exclaimed the 
 doctor. 
 
 Mary laughed as she answered, " O, noth- 
 ing, but that I can't get up. I don't know 
 how I fell, and I can't get up. But it is 
 mere fatigue, — want of sleep. Do con- 
 vince Aunty that I have not got the fever." 
 
 " Let 's see," said the doctor. Then, after 
 a short study of his new patient, he assured 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 103 
 
 Mrs. Johnson that he saw no signs of fever 
 about her niece. She had had enough of 
 nursing for the present, and now she must 
 have rest. 
 
 " That is just it," said Mary. " If some- 
 body will put something under me here, 
 and just let me sleep for a few days, I shall 
 do very well." 
 
 " Not there, Miss Pickard," said Mrs. 
 Kirby, " you must be brought to our house, 
 where every thing will be quiet about you ; 
 and then you may sleep on till Christmas, 
 if you will." 
 
 Mary felt the kindness ; but she evident- 
 ly preferred remaining where she was ; and, 
 with due consideration, she was indulged. 
 She did not wish to be carried through the 
 street, so that the people might see that the 
 Good Lady was down at last ; and besides, 
 she felt as if she should die by the way, 
 though really believing she should do very 
 well if only let alone. She was allowed to 
 order things just as she liked. A mattress 
 was put under her on the floor. Ann War- 
 render came and undressed her, lifting her 
 
104 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 limbs as if she was an infant, for she could 
 not move them herself; and daily was she 
 refreshed, as she had taught others to re- 
 fresh those who cannot move from their 
 beds. Every morning the doctor came, and 
 agieed with her that there was nothing in 
 the world the matter with her; that she had 
 only to lie still till she felt the wish to get 
 up; and every day came Mrs. Kirby to 
 take a look at her, if her eyes were closed ; 
 and if she was able to talk and listen, to 
 tell her how the sick were faring, and what 
 were the prospects of Bleabarn. After 
 these visits, something good was often 
 found near the pillow; some firm jelly, or 
 particularly pure arrowroot, or the like ; 
 odd things to be dropped by the fairies ; 
 but Mrs. Kirby said the neighbors liked to 
 think that the Good Lady was waited on 
 by the Good People. 
 
 Another odd thing was, that for several 
 days Mary could not sleep at all. She 
 would have liked it, and she needed it ex- 
 tremely, and the window-curtain was drawn, 
 and every body was very quiet, and even 
 
THE TEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 105 
 
 poor Jem caught tlie trick of quietness, and 
 lay immovable for hours, when the door of 
 his closet was open, watching to see her 
 sleep. But she could not. She felt, what 
 was indeed true, that Aunty's large black 
 eyes were for ever fixed upon her ; and she 
 could not but be aware that the matter of 
 the very first public concern in Bleaburn 
 was, that she should go to sleep ; and this 
 was enough to prevent it. At last, when 
 people were getting frightened, and even 
 the doctor told Mr. Kirby that he should be 
 glad to correct this insomnolence, the news 
 went softly along the street one day, told in 
 whispers even at the further end, that the 
 Good Lady was asleep. The children were 
 warned that they must keep within doors, 
 or go up to the brow to play ; there must 
 be no noise in the hollow. The dogs were 
 not allowed to bark, nor the ducks to 
 quack ; and Farmer Neale's carts were on 
 no account to go below the Plough and 
 Harrow. The patience of all persons who 
 liked to make a noise was tried and proved, 
 for nobody broke the rule ; and when Mary 
 
106 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 once began sleeping, it seemed as if she 
 would never stop. She could hardly keep 
 awake to eat, or to be washed ; and as for 
 having her hair brushed, that is always 
 drowsy work, and she could never look be- 
 fore her for two minutes together while it 
 was done. She thought it all very ridicu- 
 lous, and laughed at her own laziness, and 
 then, before the smile was off her lips, she 
 had sunk on her pillow and was asleep 
 again. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 107 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 It was a regular business now for three 
 or four of the boys of Bleaburn to go up to 
 the brow every morning to bring down the 
 
 stores from O , which were daily left 
 
 there under the care of the watch. Mr. 
 Kirby had gi-eat influence already with the 
 boys of Bleaburn. He found plenty for 
 them to do, and, when they were very hun- 
 gry with running about, he gave them 
 wholesome food to satisfy their healthy ap- 
 petite. He said, he and Mrs. Kirby and 
 the doctor worked hard, and they could not 
 let any body be idle but those who were ill : 
 and, now that the regular work and wages 
 of the place were suspended, he arranged 
 matters after his own sense of the needs of 
 the people. The boys who survived and 
 
108 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 were in licalih, foniu^d a sort of regiment 
 under his orders, and they certainly never 
 liked work so well before. Every little fel- 
 low felt his own consequence, and was 
 aware of his own responsibility. A certain 
 number, as has been said, went up to the 
 brow to bring down the stores. A certain 
 number were to succeed each other at the 
 doctor's door, from hour to hour, to carry 
 medicines, that the sick might neither be 
 kept waiting, nor be liable to be served 
 with the wrong medicine, from too many 
 sorts being carried in a basket together. 
 Others attended upon Warrender, with pail 
 and brush, and helped him with his lime- 
 washing. At first it w^as difficult, as has 
 been said, to induce the lads to volunteer 
 for this service, and Mr. Kirby directed 
 much argument and persuasion towards 
 their supposed fear of entering the cottages 
 where people were lying sick. This was 
 not the reason, however, as Warrender ex- 
 plained, with downcast eyes, when Mr. 
 Kirby wondered what ailed the lads, that 
 they ran all sorts of dangers all day long, 
 and shirked this one. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 109 
 
 "'T is not the clanger, I fancy, Sir," said 
 Warrender; "they are not so much afraid 
 of the fever as of going with me, I 'm sorry 
 to say." 
 
 " Afraid of you ! " said Mr. Kirby, laugh- 
 ing. " What harm could you do them ? " 
 
 "'T is my temper. Sir, I 'm afraid." 
 
 " What is the matter with your temper ? 
 I see nothing amiss with it." 
 
 " And I hope you never may. Sir : but I 
 can't answer for myself, though at this mo- 
 ment I know the folly of such passion as 
 these lads have seen in me. Sir, it has 
 been my way to be violent with them ; and 
 I don't wonder they slink away from me. 
 But—" 
 
 " I am really quite surprised," said Mr. 
 Kirby. " This is all news to me. I should 
 have said you were a remarkably staid, 
 quiet, persevering man; and, I am sure, 
 very kind-hearted." 
 
 " You have seen us all at such a time, 
 you know. Sir ! It is not only the misfor- 
 tunes of the time that sober us, but when 
 there is so much to do for one's neighbors, 
 
110 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 one's mind does not want to be in a pas- 
 sion, — so to speak." 
 
 " Very true. The best part of us is 
 roused, and puts down the worse. I quite 
 agree with you, Warrender." 
 
 The boys were not long in learning that 
 there was nothing now to fear from War- 
 render. No one was sent staggering from 
 a box on the ear. No hair was ever pulled ; 
 nor was any boy ever shaken in his jacket. 
 Instead of doing such things, Warrender 
 made companions of his young assistants, 
 taught them to do well whatever they put 
 their hands to, and made them willing and 
 happy. While two or three thus waited 
 on him, others carried home the clean linen 
 that his daughter and a neighbor or two 
 were frequently ready to send out: and 
 they daily changed the water in the tubs 
 where the foul linen was deposited. Oth- 
 ers, again, swept and washed down the 
 long, steep street, maknig it look almost as 
 clean as if it belonged to a Dutch village. 
 After the autumn pig-killing, there were 
 few or no more pigs. The poor suflarers 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. Ill 
 
 could not attend to them ; could not aiTord, 
 indeed, to buy them ; and had scarcely any 
 food to give them. Though this was a to- 
 ken of poverty, it was hardly to be lament- 
 ed in itself, under the circumstances ; for 
 there is no foulness whatever, no nastiness 
 that is to be found among the abodes of 
 men so dangerous to health as that of pig- 
 sties. There is mismanagement in this. 
 People take for granted that the pig is a 
 dirty animal, and give him no chance of 
 being clean ; whereas, if they would try the 
 experiment of keeping his house swept, and 
 putting his food always in one place, and 
 washing him with soap and water once a 
 week, they would find that he knows how 
 to keep his pavement clean, and that he 
 runs grunting to meet his washing with a 
 satisfaction not to be mistaken. Such was 
 the conclusion of the boys who undertook 
 the purification of the two or three pigs 
 that remained in Bleaburn. As for the 
 empty sties, they were cleaner than many 
 of the cottages. After a conversation with 
 Mr. Kirby, Farmer Neale bought all the 
 
112 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 dirt-heaps for iiiaiinre; and in a few days 
 they were all trundled away in barrows, — 
 even to the stable-manure from the Plough 
 and Harrow, — and heaped together at the 
 farm, and well shut down with a casing of 
 earth, beat firm with spades. Boys really 
 like such work as this, when they are put 
 upon it in the right way. They were 'less 
 dirty than they would have been with tum- 
 bling about and quan-elling and cufling in 
 the filthy street; in a finer glow of exer- 
 cise ; with a far more wholesome appetite ; 
 and far more satisfaction in eating, because 
 they had earned their food. Moreover, 
 they began to feel themselves little friends 
 of the grown people, — of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Kirby, and the Doctor, and the Warrenders, 
 — instead of a sort of reptiles, or other 
 plague ; and Mr. Kirby astonished them so 
 by a bit of amusement now and then, when 
 he had time, that they would have called 
 him a conjurer, if he had not been a cler- 
 gyman. He made a star — any star they 
 pleased — as large as the comet, just by 
 making them look at it through a tube; 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 113 
 
 and he showed them how he took a drop 
 of foul water from a stinking pool, and put 
 it between glasses in a hole in his window- 
 shutter ; and how the drop became like a 
 pond, and was found to be swarming with 
 loathsome live creatures, swimming about, 
 and trying to swallow each other. After 
 these exhibitions, it is true the comet seemed 
 much less wonderful and terrible than be- 
 fore ; but then the drop of water was infi- 
 nitely more so. The lads studied Mr. Kir- 
 by's cistern, — so carefully covered, and so 
 regularly cleaned out ; and they learned 
 how the water he drank at dinner was fil- 
 tered ; and then they went and scoured out 
 the few water-tubs there were in the village, 
 and consulted their neighbors as to how 
 the public of Bleaburn could be persuaded 
 not to throw filth and refuse into the stream 
 at the upper part, defiling it for those who 
 lived lower down. 
 
 One morning at the beginning of Decem- 
 ber, — on such a morning as was now sad- 
 ly frequent, drizzly, and far too warm for 
 the season, — the lads who went up to the 
 
114 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 brow saw the same sight that had been 
 visible in the same place one evening in 
 the preceding August. There was a chaise, 
 and an anxious postboy, and a lady talk- 
 ing with one of the cordon. Mr. Kirby 
 had learned what friends Mary Pickard had 
 in England, and which of them lived near- 
 est, and he had taken the liberty of writing 
 to declare the condition of the Good Lady. 
 His letter brought the friend, Mrs. Hender- 
 son, who came charged with affectionate 
 messages to Mary from her young daugh- 
 ters, and a fixed determination not to re- 
 tarn without the invalid. 
 
 " To think," as she said to Mary when 
 she appeared by the side of her mattress, 
 "that you should be in England, suffering 
 in this way, and we not have any idea 
 what you were going through ! " 
 
 Mary smiled, and said she had gone 
 through nothing terrible on her own ac- 
 count. She might have been at Mr. Kir- 
 by's for three weeks past, but that she really 
 preferred being where she was. 
 
 " Do not ask Ikt now. Madam, where* she 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 115 
 
 likes to be," said Mr. Kirby, who had been 
 brought down the street by the bustle of a 
 stranger's arrival. " Do not consult her at 
 all, but take her away, and nurse her well." 
 
 " Yes," said the Doctor ; " lay her in a 
 good air, and let her sleep, and feed her 
 well ; and she will soon come round. She 
 is better, even here." 
 
 " Madam," said Widow Johnson's feeble 
 but steady voice, " be to her what she has 
 been to us ; raise her up to what she was 
 when I first heard her step upon those 
 stairs, and we shall say you deserve to be 
 her friend." 
 
 " You will go, will not you ? " whispered 
 Mrs. Kirby to Mary. " You will let us 
 manage it all for you ? " 
 
 " Do what you please with me," was the 
 reply. " Y^'ou know best how to get me 
 well soonest. Only let me tell Aunty that 
 I will come again as soon as I am able." 
 
 " Better not," said the prudent Mrs. Kir- 
 by. " There is no saying what may be the 
 condition of this place by the spring. And 
 it might keep Mrs. Johnson in a state of 
 
116 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 expectation not fit for one so feeble. Bet- 
 ter not." 
 
 " Very well," said Mary. 
 
 Mrs. Kirby thought of something that 
 her husband had said of Mary ; that he had 
 never seen any one with such power of 
 will and command so docile. She merely 
 promised her aunt frequent news of her; 
 agreed with those who doubted whether 
 she could bear the jolting of any kind of 
 carriage on the road up to the brow; ad- 
 mitted that, though she could now stand, 
 she could not walk across the room ; al- 
 lowed herself to be carried on her mattress 
 in a carpet, by four men, up to the chaise ; 
 and nodded in reply to a remark made by 
 one little girl to another in the street, and 
 which the doctor wished she had not heard, 
 that she looked " rarely bad." 
 
 The landlady at O seemed, by her 
 
 countenance, to have much the same opin- 
 ion of Mary's looks, when she herself 
 brought out the glass of wine, for which 
 Mrs. Henderson stopped her chaise at the 
 door of the Cross Keys. The landlady 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 117 
 
 brought it herself, because none of her 
 people would give as much as a glass of 
 cold water, hand to hand with any one 
 who came from Bleaburn. The landlady 
 stood shaking her head, and saying she 
 had done the best she could; she had 
 warned the young lady in time. 
 
 "But you were quite out in your warn- 
 ing," said Mary. " You were sure I should 
 have the fever : but I have not." 
 
 " You have not ! " 
 
 " I have had no disease, — no complaint 
 whatever. I am only weak from fatigue." 
 
 " It is quite true," said Mrs. Henderson, 
 as the hostess turned to her for confirnja- 
 tion. " Good wine like this, the fresh air 
 of our moors, and the easy sleep that comes 
 to Good Ladies like her, are the only med- 
 icines she wants." 
 
 The landlady curtsied low, — said the 
 payment made should supply a glass of 
 wine to somebody at Bleaburn, and bade 
 the driver proceed. After a mile or two, 
 he turned his head, touched his hat, and 
 directed the ladies' attention to a bottle of 
 
118 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 wine, with IoosciuhI cork, and a cnj), which 
 the hostess had contrived to smuggle into 
 the j)ocket of the chaise. She was sure 
 the young hidy would want some wine be- 
 fore they stopped. 
 
 *' How kind every body is I " said Mary, 
 with swimming eyes. Mrs. Henderson 
 cleared her throat, and looked out of the 
 window on her side. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 119 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The spectacle of carrying the Good 
 Lady up to the brow was more terrify- 
 ing to the people of Bleaburn than any 
 of the funerals they had seen creeping 
 along by the same path, — more even than 
 the passage of the laden cart, with the pall 
 over it, on the morning of the opening of 
 the new burying-ground. The people of 
 Bleaburn, extremely ignorant, were natu- 
 rally extremely superstitious. It was not 
 only the very ignorant who were supersti- 
 tious. The fever itself was never sup- 
 posed to be more catching than a mood 
 of superstition ; and so it now appeared 
 in Bleaburn. For many weeks past the 
 Good Lady had been regarded as a sort 
 of talisman in the people's possession. 
 
120 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 She breathed out such cheerfuhiess wher- 
 ever she turned her face, that it seemed as 
 if the place could not go quite to destruc- 
 tion while she was in it. Some who would 
 not have admitted to themselves that they 
 held such an impression, were yet infected 
 with the common dismay, as well as with 
 the sorrow of parting with her. If Mary 
 had had the least idea of the probable ef- 
 fect of her departure, she would have been 
 less admired by the Kirbys for her docility, 
 for she would certainly have insisted on 
 staying where she was. 
 
 " I declare I don't know what to do," 
 the doctor confessed in confidence to the 
 clergyman. " Every patient I have is 
 drooping, and the people in the streets 
 look like creatures under doom. The 
 comet was bad enough ; and, before we 
 have well done with it, here is a panic 
 which is ten times worse." 
 
 " I tried to lend a hand to help you 
 against the comet," replied Mr. Kirby. " I 
 think I may be of some use again now. 
 Shall I tell them it is a clear case of idol- 
 atry ? " 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 121 
 
 " Why, it is in fact so, Mr. Kirby ; but 
 yet I shrink from appearing to cast the 
 slightest disrespect on her." 
 
 "Of course ; of course. The thing I 
 want to show them is, what she would 
 think, — how shocked she would be if she 
 knew the state of mind she left behind." 
 
 " Ah ! if you can do that ! " 
 
 " I will see about it. Now tell me how 
 we are going on." 
 
 The doctor replied by a look, which 
 made Mr. Kirby shake his head. Neither 
 of them liked to say in words how awful 
 was the state of things. 
 
 " It is such weather, you see," said the 
 doctor. "Damp and disagreeable as it is, 
 this December is as warm as September." 
 
 " Five-and-twenty sorts of flowers out in 
 my garden," observed Mr. Kirby. " I set 
 the boys to count them yesterday. We 
 shall have as many as that on Christmas- 
 day. A thing unheard of ! " 
 
 " There will be no Christmas kept this 
 year, surely," said the doctor. 
 
 " I don't know that. My wife and I were 
 
122 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 talking it over yesterday. We think 
 
 Well, my boy," to a little boy who stood 
 pulling his forelock, "what have yoii to 
 say to me? I am wanted at home, am I? 
 Is Mrs. Kirby there?" 
 
 The doctor heard him say to himself, 
 " Thank God ! " when they saw the lady 
 coming out of a cottage near. The doctor 
 had long suspected that the clergyman and 
 his wife were as sensible of one another's 
 danger as the most timid person in Blea- 
 burn was of his own; and now he was 
 sure of it. Henceforth, he understood that 
 they were never easy out of one another's 
 sight; and that when the clergyman was 
 sent for from the houses he was passing, 
 his first idea always was that his wife was 
 taken ill. It was so. They were not peo- 
 ple of sentiment. They had settled their 
 case with readiness and decision, when it 
 first presented itself to them ; and they 
 never looked back. But it did not follow 
 that they did not feel. They agreed, with 
 the smallest possible delay, that they ought 
 to succeed to the chargt^ of Bleaburn on 
 
TIIK PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 123 
 
 Mr. Finch'r. death; that they ought to 
 place their boys at school, and their two 
 girls with their aniit, till Bleaburn should 
 be healthy again ; and that they must 
 stand or fall by the duty they had under- 
 taken. As for separating, that was an idea 
 mentioned only to be dismissed. They 
 now nodded across the little street, as Mrs. 
 Kirby proceeded on her round of visits, and 
 her husband went home, to see who want- 
 ed him there. 
 
 In the corner of the little porch was a 
 man sitting, crouching and cowering as if 
 in bodily pain. Mr. Kirby went up to him, 
 stooped down to see his face (but it was 
 covered with his hands), and at last ven- 
 tured to remove his hat. Then the man 
 looked up. It was a square, hard face, 
 which, from its make, would have seemed 
 immovable ; but it was any thing but that 
 now. It is a strange sight, the working of 
 emotion in a countenance usually as hard 
 as marble! " 
 
 " Neale ! " exclaimed Mr. Kirby. " Some- 
 body ill at the farm, I am afraid." 
 
124 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 " Not yet, Sir ; not yet, Mr. Kirby. But 
 Lord save us I we know notliing of how 
 poon it may be so." 
 
 " Exactly so : that has been the case of 
 every man, woman, and child, hour by 
 hour, since Adam fell." 
 
 " Yer<, Sir; but the present time is some- 
 thing different from that. I came. Sir, to 
 
 say I came, Mr. Kirby, because I 
 
 can get no peace or rest, day or night; for 
 thoughts, Sir; for thoughts." 
 
 Mr. Kirby glanced round him. " Come 
 in," said he ; " come into my study." 
 
 Neale followed him in ; but instead of 
 sitting down, he walked straight to the 
 window, and seemed to be looking into the 
 garden. Mr. Kirby, who had been on foot 
 all the morning, sat down and waited, 
 shaving away at a pen meanwhile. 
 
 " On Sunday, Sir," said Neale at last, in 
 a whispering kind of voice, " you read that 
 I have kept back the hire of the laborers 
 that reaped down my fields, and that their 
 cry has entered into the ears of the Lord." 
 
 " That you kept back the hire of the la- 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 125 
 
 borer ? " exclaimed Mr. Kirby, quickly turn- 
 ing in his seat, so as to face his visitor. 
 He laid his hand on the pocket Bible on 
 the table, opened at the Epistle of James, 
 and, with his finger on the line, walked to 
 the window with it. 
 
 " Yes, Sir, that is it," said Neale. « I 
 would return the hire I kept back, — (1 
 can't exactly say by fraud, for it was from 
 hardness,) — I would pay it all willingly 
 now; but the men are dead. The fever 
 has left but a few of them.*' 
 
 " I see," said Mr. Kirby. " I see how it 
 is. You think the fever is dogging your 
 heels, because the cries of your laborers 
 have entered into the ears of the Lord. 
 You want to buy off the complaints of the 
 dead, and the anger of God, by spending 
 now on the living. You are afraid of dy- 
 ing ; and you would rather part with your 
 money, dearly as you love it, than die ; and 
 so you are planning to bribe God to let 
 you live." 
 
 " Is not that rather hard. Sir ? " 
 
 " Hard ? — Is it true ? that is the ques- 
 tion." 
 
126 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 When they came to look closely into the 
 matter, it was clear enough. Neale, driven 
 from his accustomed metliods and employ- 
 ments, and from his profits, and all his out- 
 ward reliances, was adrift and panic-strick- 
 en. When the Good Lady was carried 
 out of the hollow, the last security seemed 
 gone, and the place appeared to be deliv- 
 ered over to God's wrath ; his share of 
 which, his conscience showed him to be 
 pointed out in the words of Scripture which 
 had so impressed his mind, and which 
 were ringing in his ears, as he said, day 
 and night. 
 
 " As for the Good Lady," said Mr. Kir- 
 by, " I am sure I hope she will never hear 
 how some of the people here regard her, 
 after all she has done for them. If any 
 thing could bow her spirit, it would be 
 that." Seeing Neale stare in surprise, he 
 went on. " One would think she was a 
 kind of witch or sorceress; that there was 
 some sort of magic about it; instead of 
 her being a sensible, kind-hearted, fearless 
 woman, who knows how to nurse, and is 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 127 
 
 not afraid to do it when it is most want- 
 ed." 
 
 " Don't you think, then, Sir, that God 
 sent her to us ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; as he sent the doctor, and 
 my wife and me : as he sends people to 
 each other whenever they meet. I am sure 
 you never heard the Good Lady say that 
 she was specially sent." 
 
 " She is so humble, — so natural. Sir, — 
 she was not likely to say such a thing." 
 
 " Very true : and she is too wise to think 
 it. No, — there is nothing to be frightened 
 about in her going away. She could have 
 done no good here, while unable to walk or 
 sit up; and she will recover better where 
 she is gone. If she recovers, as I expect 
 she will, she will come and see us ; and I 
 shall think that as good luck as you can 
 do; not because she carries luck about 
 with her, but because there is nothing we 
 so much want as her example of courage, 
 and sense and cheerfulness." 
 
 " To be sure," said Neale, in a medita- 
 tive way, " she could not keep the people 
 from dying." 
 
128 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 " No, indeed," observed Mr. Kirby ; " you 
 and some others took care that she should 
 not." 
 
 In reply to the man's stare of amaze- 
 ment, Mr. Kirby asked, — 
 
 " Are not you the proprietor of several of 
 the cotta£:es in Bleaburn ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I have seven altogether." 
 
 " I know them well, — too well. Neale, 
 your conscience accuses you about the hire 
 of your laborers : but you have done worse 
 things than oppress them about wages. 
 Part of the mischief you may be unaware 
 of; but I know you are not of all. I know 
 that Widow Slaney speaks to you, year by 
 year, about repairing that wretched place 
 she lives in. Have you done it yet ? Not 
 you ! I need not have asked ; and yet you 
 screw that poor woman for her rent till she 
 cannot sleep at night for thinking of it. 
 You know in your heart that what she 
 Bays is true, — that if her son was alive, 
 — (and it was partly your hardness that 
 sent him to the wars, and to his terrible 
 fate) — " 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABUKN. 129 
 
 " Stop, Sir ! I cannot bear it I " ex- 
 claimed Neale. " Sir, you should not bear 
 so hard on me. I have a son that met 
 another bad fate at the wars: and you 
 know it, Mr. Kirby." 
 
 " To be sure I do. And how do you treat 
 him ? ^ You drove him away by harshness ; 
 and now you say he shall not come back, 
 because you cannot be troubled with a 
 cripple at home." 
 
 " Not now. Sir. I say no such thing 
 now. When I said that, I was in a 
 bad mood. I mean to be kind to him 
 now: and I have told him so; — that is, 
 I have said so to the girl he is attached 
 to." 
 
 " You have ? You have really seen her, 
 and shown respect to the young people ? " 
 
 « I have. Sir." 
 
 " Well : that is so far good. That is 
 some foundation laid for a better future." 
 
 " I should be thankful. Sir, to make up 
 for the past." 
 
 " Ah I " said Mr. Kirby, shaking his head; 
 "that is what can never be done. The 
 
130 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 people, as you say, are dead : tlie misery is 
 sufl'ered : the mischief is done, and cannot 
 be undone. It is a lie, and a very fatal 
 one, to say that past sins may be atoned 
 for." 
 
 " O Mr. Kirby ! don't say that I " 
 " I must say it, be(5kuse it is true. You 
 said yourself, that you cannot make it up 
 to those you have injured, because the men 
 are dead. What is that you are saying ? 
 that you wish the fever had taken you ; 
 and you could go. now and shoot your- 
 self? Before you dare to say such things, 
 you should look at the other half of the 
 case. Is not the future greater than the 
 past, because we have power over it ? And 
 is there not a good text somewhere about 
 forgetting the things that are behind, and 
 pressing forwards to those that are be- 
 fore?" 
 
 " O, Sir ! if I could forget the past ! " 
 " Well, you see you have Scripture war- 
 rant for trying. But then the pressing 
 forwards to better things must go with it. 
 If you forget the past, and go on the same 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 131 
 
 as ever, you might as well be in hell at 
 once. Then, I don't know that your shoot- 
 ing yourself would do much harm to any 
 body." 
 
 " But, Sir, I am willing to do all I can. 
 I am willing to spend all I have. I am, 
 indeed." 
 
 " Well, spend away, — money, time, 
 thought, kindness, — till you can fairly say 
 that you have done by every body as you 
 would be done by ! It will be time enough 
 then to think what next. And, first, about 
 these cottages of yours. If no more peo- 
 ple are to die in them, murdered by filth 
 and damp, you have no time to lose. You 
 must not sit here, talking remorse, and 
 planning fine deeds, but you must set the 
 work going this very day. Come ! let us 
 go and see." 
 
 Farmer Neale walked rather feebly 
 through the hall : so Mr. Kirby called him 
 into the parlor, and gave him a glass of 
 wine. Still, as they went down the street, 
 one man observed to another, that Neale 
 looked ten years older in a day. He looked 
 
182 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 round him, liowcvor, with some signs of 
 returning spirits, when he saw the boys 
 at their street-cleaning, and observed, 
 that hereabouts things looked wholesome 
 enough. 
 
 " Mere outside scouring," said Mr. Kirby. 
 " Better than dirt, as far as it goes ; unless, 
 indeed, it makes us satisfied to have whited 
 sepulchres for dwellings. Come and see 
 the uncleanness within." 
 
 Mr. Kirby did not spare him. He took 
 him through all the seven cottages, for 
 which he had extorted extravagant rents, 
 without fulfilling any conditions on his 
 own part. He showed him every bit of 
 broken roof, of damp wall, of soaked floor. 
 He showed him every heap of filth, every 
 puddle of nastiness caused by there being 
 no drains, or other means of removal of 
 refuse. He advised him to make a note of 
 every repair needed ; • and, when he saw 
 that Ncale's hand shook so that he could 
 not write, took the pencil from his hand 
 and did it himself. Two of the seven cot- 
 tages he condemned utterly : and Neale 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 133 
 
 eagerly agreed to pull them down, and re- 
 build them with every improvement requi- 
 site to health. To the others he would 
 supply what was wanting, and especially 
 drainage. They stood in such a cluster 
 that it was practicable to drain them all 
 into a gully of the rock, which, by being 
 covered over, by a little building up at one 
 end, and a little blasting at one side, might 
 be made into a considerable tank, which 
 was to be closed by a tight-fitting and 
 very heavy slab at top. Mr. Kirby con- 
 ceded so much to the worldly spirit of the 
 man he had to deal wdth, as to point out 
 that the manure thus saved would so fer- 
 tilize his fields as soon to repay the cost of 
 this batch of drainage. Neale did not care 
 for this at the moment. He was too sore 
 at heart at the spectacle of these cottages 
 and their inmates, — too much shaken by 
 remorse and fear, — for any idea of profit 
 and loss : but Mr. Kirby thought it as well 
 to point out the fact, as it might help to 
 animate the hard man to proceed in a good 
 work, when his present melting mood 
 should be passing away. 
 
13i SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 " Well : I think this is all we can do to- 
 day," said Mr. Kirby, as they issued from 
 the seventh cottage. " The worst of it is, 
 
 the workmen from O will not come, — 
 
 I am afraid no builder will come, even to 
 make an estimat(^, — till we are declared 
 free of fever. But there is a good deal that 
 your own people can do." 
 
 " They can knock on a few slates before 
 dark. Sir ; and those windows can be 
 mended to-day. 1 trust, Mr. Kirby, you 
 will give me encouragement ; and not be 
 harder than you can help." 
 
 " Why, Neale ; the thing is this. You 
 do not hold your doom from my hand ; 
 and you ought not to hang upon my 
 words. You come to me to tell me what 
 you feel, and to ask what I think. All I 
 can do is to be honest with you, and (as 
 indeed I am) sorry for you. Time must 
 do the rest. If you are now acting well 
 from fear of the fever only, time will show 
 you how worthless is the ctlbrt ; for you 
 will break off as soon as the fright has 
 passed away. If you n'ally mean to do 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 135 
 
 justly and love mercy, through good and 
 bad fortune, time will prove you there, too : 
 and then you will see whether I am hard, 
 or whether we are to be friends. This is 
 my view of the matter." 
 
 Neale touched his hat, and was slowly 
 going away, when Mr. Kirby followed him, 
 to say one thing more. 
 
 " It may throw light to yourself, on your 
 own state of mind, to tell you that it is 
 quite a usual one among people who have 
 deeply sinned, when any thing happens to 
 terrify them. Histories of earthquakes and 
 plagues tell of people thinking and feeling 
 as you do to-day. I dare say you think 
 nobody ever felt the same before ; but vou 
 are not the only one in Bleaburn." 
 
 " Indeed, Sir ! " exclaimed Neale, exceed- 
 ingly struck. 
 
 " Far from it. A person who has often 
 robbed your poultry-yard, and taken your 
 duck-eggs, thought that I was preaching at 
 him last Sunday ; though I knew nothing 
 about it. He wished to make reparation ; 
 and he asked me if I thought you would 
 
136 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 forgive hiin. Do you really wi.sh to know 
 my answer ? I told him I thought you 
 WDuld not : but that he must confess and 
 make reparation, nevertheless." 
 
 " You thought I should not forgive 
 him ? " 
 
 " I did : and I think so now, thus far. 
 You would say and believe that you for- 
 gave him : but, at odd times, for years to 
 come, you would show him that you had 
 not forgotten it, and remind him that you 
 had a hold over him. If not, — if I do you 
 injustice in this, I should " 
 
 " You do not, Sir. I am afraid what 
 you say is very true." 
 
 " Well, just think it over before he comes 
 to you. This is the only confession made 
 to me which it concerns you to hear : but 
 I assure you, I believe there is not an evil- 
 doer in Bleaburn that is not sick at heart 
 as you are ; and for the same reason. We 
 all have our pains and troubles ; and yours 
 may turn out a great blessing to you, — or 
 a curse, according as you persevere or give 
 way." 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 137 
 
 Neale said to himself, as he went home, 
 that Mr. Kirby had surely been very hard. 
 If a man hanged for murder was filled with 
 hope and triumph, and certainty of glory, 
 there must be some more speedy comfort 
 for him than the pastor had held out. Yet, 
 in his inmost heart, he felt that Mr. Kirby 
 was right ; and he could not, for the life of 
 him, keep away from him. He managed 
 to meet him every day. He could seldom 
 get a word said about the state of his 
 mind ; for Mr. Kirby did not approve of 
 people's talking of their feelings, — and es- 
 pecially of those connected with conscience : 
 but in the deeds which issued from con- 
 scientious feelings, he found cordial assist- 
 ance given. And Farmer Neale sometimes 
 fancied that he could see the time, — far as 
 it was ahead, — when Mr. Kirby and he 
 might be, as the pastor had himself said, 
 friends. 
 
 The amount of confession and remorse 
 opened out to the pastor was indeed strik- 
 ing, and more afiecting to him than he 
 chose to show to any body but his wife ; 
 
188 SICKNESS AND HKALTH OF 
 
 and not even to lior did he tell many of the 
 facts. The muslirooui resolutions sjiawned 
 in the heat of panic were otiensive and dis- 
 couraging to him : but there were better 
 cases than these. A man who had taken 
 into wrath with a neighbor about a gate, 
 and had kept so for years, and refused to 
 go to church lest he should meet him there, 
 now discovered that life is too short for 
 strife, and too precarious to be wasted in 
 painful quarrels. A little girl whispered to 
 Mr. Kirby that she had taken a turnip in 
 his field without leave, and got permission 
 to weed the great flower-bed without pay, 
 to make up for it. Simpson and Sally 
 asked him to marry them ; and for poor 
 Sally's sake he was right glad to do it. 
 They were straightforward enough in their 
 declaration of their reasons. Simpson 
 thought nobody's life was worth a half- 
 penny now, and he did not wish to be 
 taken in his sins : while Sally said it 
 would be worse still if the innocent baby 
 was taken for its parents' sin. They had 
 to hear the publication of banns, at a time 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 139 
 
 when other people were thinking of any- 
 thing but marriage ; and when the now 
 disused church was unlocked to admit 
 them to the altar, — just themselves and 
 the clerk, — it was very dreary ; but they 
 immediately after felt the safer and . better 
 for it. Sally thought the Good Lady 
 would have gone to church with her, if she 
 had been here ; and she wished she could 
 let her know that Simpson had fulfilled his 
 promise at last. Other people besides 
 Sally wished they could let the Good 
 Lady know how they were going on ; — 
 how frost came at last, in January, and 
 stopped the fever ; — how families who 
 had lived crowded together now spread 
 themselves into the empty houses ; and 
 how there was so much room that the 
 worst cottages were left uninhabited, or 
 were already in course of demolition, to 
 make airy spaces, or afford sites for better 
 dwellings ; and how it was now certain 
 that above two thirds of the people of 
 Bleaburn had perished in the fever, or by 
 decline, after it. But they did not think of 
 
140 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 getting any l:)ocly who could write to tell 
 all this to the Good Lady : nor did it occur 
 to them that she might possibly know it 
 all. The men and boys collected pretty 
 spars for her ; and the women and girls 
 knitted gloves and comforters, and made 
 pincushions for her, in the faith that they 
 should some day see her again. Mean- 
 while, they talked of her every day. 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 141 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 It was a fine spring day when the Good 
 Lady reappeared at Bleaburn. There she 
 was, perfectly well, and glad to see health 
 on so many of the faces about her. Some 
 were absent whom she had left walking 
 about in the strength of their prime ; but 
 others whom she had last seen lying help- 
 less, like living skeletons, were now on 
 their feet, with a light in their eyes, and 
 some little tinge of color in their cheeks. 
 There were sad spectacles to be seen of 
 premature decrepitude, of dreadful sores, of 
 deafness, of lameness, left by the fever. 
 There were enough of these to have sad- 
 dened the heart of any stranger entering 
 Bleaburn for the first time, but to Mary 
 the impression was that of a place risen 
 
142 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 from the dead. There was much grass in 
 the churchyard, and none in the streets : 
 the windows of the cottages were standing 
 wide, letting it be seen that the rooms 
 were whitewashed within. There was an 
 indescribable air of freshness and briglitness 
 about the whole place, which made her feel 
 and say that she hardly thought the fever 
 could harbor there again. As she turned 
 into tlie lane leading to her aunt's, the 
 sound of the hammer and the chipping of 
 stone were heard ; and some workmen 
 whom she did not know turned from their 
 work of planing boards, to see why a 
 crowd could be coming round the corner. 
 These were workmen from O , build- 
 ing Neale's new cottages, in capital style. 
 And, for a moment, two young ladies en- 
 tering from the other end were equally 
 perplexed as to what the extraordinary bus- 
 tle could mean. Their mother, however, 
 understood it at a glance, aiid hastened for- 
 ward to greet the (Jood Lady, sending a 
 boy to fetch Mr. Kirl>y immediately. Mrs. 
 Kirby's dryness of manner broke down 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 143 
 
 altogether when she introduced her daugh- 
 ters to Mary. " Let them say they have 
 shaken hands with you," said she, as she 
 herself kissed the hand she held. 
 
 It was not easy for Mary to spare a hand, 
 so laden was she with pincushions and knit- 
 ted wares ; but the Kirbys took them from 
 her, and followed in her train, till the Wid- 
 ow Johnson appeared on her threshold, pale 
 as marble, and grave as a monument, but 
 well, and able to hold out her arms to Mary. 
 Poor Jem's excitement seemed to show that 
 he was aware that some great event was 
 happening. His habits were the same as 
 before his illness, and he had no peace till 
 he had shut the door when Mary entered. 
 Everybody then went away for the time; 
 plenty of eyes, however, being on the watch 
 for the moment when the Good Lady should 
 be visible again. 
 
 In a few minutes, the movements of Jem's 
 head showed his mother that, as she said, 
 something was coming. Jem's hearing was 
 uncommonly acute : and what he now heard, 
 and what other people heard directly after, 
 
144 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 was a drum and fife. Neighbor after neigh- 
 bor came to tell the Johnsons what their 
 ears had told them already, — that there 
 was a recruiting party in Bleaburn again; 
 and Jem went out, attracted by the music. 
 
 " It is like the candle to the moth to 
 him," said his mother. " I must go and 
 sec that nol)ody makes sport of him, or 
 gives him drink." 
 
 "Sit still, Aunty; I will go. And there 
 is Warren der, I see, and Ann. We will 
 take care of Jem." 
 
 And so they did. Ann looked so mean- 
 ingly at Mary, meantime, as to make Mary 
 look inquiringly at Ann. 
 
 "Only, ma'am," said Ann, "that Sally 
 Simpson is standing yonder. She does not 
 like to come forward, but I know she would 
 be pleased." 
 
 "Her name is Simpson? How glad I 
 am ho has married her! " whispered Mary, 
 as she glanced at the ring which Sally was 
 rather striving to show. " I hoj^e you are 
 happy atjast, Sally." 
 
 "Oh, ma'am, it is such a weight gone I 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 145 
 
 And I do try to make him happy at home, 
 that he may ngver repent." 
 
 Mary thought the doubt should be all 
 the other way, — whether the wife might 
 not be the most likely to repent having 
 bound herself to a man who could act to- 
 wards her as Simpson had done. Widow 
 Slaney was not to be seen. The fife and 
 drum had sent her to the loft. She came 
 down to see Mary ; but her agitation was 
 so great, that it would have been cruelty to 
 stay. They heard her draw the bolt as they 
 turned from the door. 
 
 " She does not like seeing Jack Neale any 
 more than hearing the drum," observed the 
 host of the Plough and Harrow, who had 
 come forth to invite the Good Lady in, 'to 
 take a glass of something.' " That is Jack 
 Neale, ma'am ; that wooden-legged young 
 man. He is .married, though, for all his be- 
 ing so crippled. The young woman loved 
 him before ; and she loves him all the more 
 now ; and they married last week, and 
 live at his father's. It must be a sad 
 sight to his father ; but he says no word 
 
 10 
 
146 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF 
 
 about it. Better not ; for Britons must be 
 loyal.*' 
 
 "And why not?" said the doctor, who 
 had hastened in from the brow, on seeing 
 that something unusual was going forward 
 below, and had ventured to offer the Good 
 Lady his arrp, as he thought an old com- 
 rade in the conllict with sickness and death 
 might do. 
 
 " Why not ? " said the doctor. " We 
 make grievous complaints of the fatality of 
 war; and it is sad to see the maiming and 
 hear of the slaughter. But we had better 
 spend our lamentations on a fatality that 
 we can manage. It would take many a 
 battle of Albuera to mow us down, and 
 hurt us in sense and limb, as the fever has 
 done." 
 
 " Why, that is true ! " cried some, as if 
 struck by a new conviction. 
 
 " True, yes," continued the doctor. " I 
 don't like the sight of a recruiting party or 
 the sound of the drum much better than 
 the poor woman in yonder house, who will 
 die of heart-break after all, — of horror and 
 
THE PEOPLE OF BLEABURN. 147 
 
 pining for her son. But there is something 
 that I like still less; the first giddiness and 
 trembling of the strong man, the sinking 
 feebleness of the young mother, the dim- 
 ming of the infant's eyes ; and the creeping 
 fog along the river-bank, the stench in the 
 hot weather, and the damp in the cold, that 
 tell us that fever has lodged among us. 1 
 know then that we shall have, many times 
 over, the slaughter of war, without any 
 comfort from thoughts of glory to ourselves 
 or duty to our country. There is neither 
 glory nor duty in dying like vermin in a 
 ditch." 
 
 " I don't see," said Warrender, " that the 
 sergeant will carry off any of our young- 
 sters now. If he had come with his drum 
 three months since, some might have gone 
 with him to get away from the fever, as a 
 more terrible thing than war ; but at pres- 
 ent I think he will find that death has left 
 us no young men to spare." 
 
 And so it proved. The sergeant and his 
 party soon marched up to the brow, and 
 disappeared, delivering the prophecy that 
 
148 SICKNESS AND HEALTH OF BLEABURN. 
 
 Bleabum would now lose its reputation for 
 eagerness to support king and country. 
 And in truth, Bleabum was little heard of 
 from that time till the peace. 
 
 Mary ccjuld not stay now. She had been 
 detained very long from home, — in Amer- 
 ica, — and somebody was waiting very im- 
 patiently there to give her a new and happy 
 home. This is said as if we were speaking 
 of a real person, — and so we are. There 
 was such a Mary Pickard; and what she 
 did for a Yorkshire village in a season of 
 fever is true. 
 
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