O God! to clasp those fingers close,
And yet to feel so lonely;
To see a light on dearest brows,
That is the sunlight only!
Be pitiful, O God!”
E. B. Browning
When we look from a distance upon some great mountain, we are apt to form rather mistaken ideas, not only of its dimensions, but of its relation to the surrounding landscape. It seems to stand before us alone in its majesty, rising like an altar to heaven, and sundered by some sharp dividing line from the plain beneath. But usually it is not N. A nearer approach brings us to gentle slopes, green with pasture or waving with corn, rising higher and higher, sometimes almost imperceptibly, till at last, by slow gradations, we arrive at the region of jagged rock and frowning precipice. Something like this we may and in the moral world. To the distant observer, a time of terror and anguish stands out in bold relief from the ordinary level of common life; and he forgets the subtle gradations, the diversified incidents, some of them trivial enough, through which men usually pass from one kind of life to another.
So passed the men of Dundee, in the summer months of that terrible year, step by step from vague apprehension to vivid, actual terror; as the pestilence that walketh in darkness first struck down one, and another, and another; then gradually multiplied its victims until the voice of lamentation filled the city, and no man felt his own life safe from the destroyer for a single hour.
Not very long after the first appearance of the pestilence, Archie Duncan came back one morning in high glee from the grammar-school, whither he had been dispatched by the careful Janet only half an hour before.
“Nae mair schule,” he cried, flinging his book on the table; “maister’s awa’, for fear o’ the sickness
— and may guid gang wi’ him!”
Jamie, who happened to be in the room, brought his brother’s ill-timed hilarity to a close by a smart box on the ear. “Hae ye no feeling, callant!” he asked angrily. “Ye suld be on yer twa knees, praying the blessed saints to pity us, instead of jesting and dafling.”
There was justice in the reproof, and Archie was abashed. He withdrew quietly to the window where his little sister was standing, and Jamie presently resumed: “A’ the rich folk ‘ll soon be awa’, and naebody left in the town but puir bodies, wha maun just bide because they canna quit.”
“There’s a hantle shops shut up doing by the High Street and the Nethergate,” remarked Janet.
“Folk dinna care to buy, these times,” responded Jamie. “I hae thocht it an ill trade enoo’ to be naething but a puir baxter lad, Janet; but noo I thank Saint Andrew for the same, for folk maun eat, so lang’s they’re alive.”
At this moment the door was partly opened, and a low, startled voice called, “Janet!”
“Come ben, Mary,” said Jamie, at once recognizing that of Mary Wigton.
Mary did not come in, however, and Janet went outside the door to speak to her. The poor girl’s face was deadly pale, and her eyes were large and wild with terror. “What’s wrung wi’ ye?” asked Janet, in alarm.
“Na sae muckle,” said Mazy, trying to hide her fears, not so much from her friend as from herself “Father’s head’s licht the day, and he’s no himsel a’ thegither,but — but — he’s no that ill, Janet.” She was trembling violently and clinging to the handle of the door for support “Puir lassie,” said Janet, compassionately.
“Will ye come and see him the noo I Do, Janet, do — for mercy’s sake!”
Janet was a brave girl, and she loved Mary Wigton dearly. But for the sake of the other members of her family she felt she duist not enter the infected room.
She answered, therefore, after a moment’s hard struggle with herself; “Wae’s me! I daurna, for Jamie and the balms.”
Mary did not remonstrate, but the sorrowful expression of her face touched Janet deeply. She said, I’ll gang in and gar Jamie fetch ye a leech. He’ll ken what’s wrang wi’ yer father. Aiblins it’s no the sickness.”
Mary thanked her, and returned sadly to her watch beside her father’s bed; still hoping against hope that this might prove some passing ailment, and not the dreaded “sickness.”
James Duncan found it difficult to procure a physician; as some, who thought their own lives of more value than those of their patients, had quitted the town, and of course those who remained had their hands full of work.
At length, however, he succeeded; though at the heavy price of presenting himself late at his master’s shop, and being obliged to admit that the sickness had made its appearance in the house where he lodged.
The physician, a compassionate man, reluctantly pronounced the verdict poor Mary most dreaded. He then prescribed some remedies, which were probably calculated to do neither good nor harm to the sufferer; and left, promising to send a hired nurse, and to return himself on the morrow.
The presence of the nurse probably saved Mary’s reason, if not her life. All that day, and the night that followed it, they two kept their awful watch beside the suffering and delirious patient. When the morning broke, and all things looked weird and strange it the faint gray light, then there came a change. Mary had risen to extinguish the useless lamp, when to her great joy her father quietly asked her to leave it burning still, Reason had returned, but alas! it was only the last look cast upon earth by the parting soul ere its dread flight to the unknown world.
“I hae been vera ill, Mary!” said the dying man. “I maun hae a priest. Where’s our John?”
Mary started. Up to this moment, terror and anguish had so bewildered her, that, as she afterwards thoughti with bitter self-reproach, she had forgotten her dear father’s soul in ministering to his body. “John’s no here,” she said, “but I’ll fetch ye a priest.”
“Na, na,” said Wigton, holding her hand in his; “ye maunna leave me, my lassie,”
Nor could she part with the nurse, So she again had recourse to the Duncan. Standing this time it the font of the stairs, she called Janet, and in a few agitated words made her request.
Jamie was out, his business requiring his attendance at an early hour, but Janet herself readily undertook the mission; while Mary returned to her place, and heard the nurse whisper as she passed her, “He’s sinking fast.”
Two long slow hours wore away, and then Janet returned. Mary met her in the passage. “He’s amaist gone!” she gasped.
“Wae’s me! I hae travelled the hail tour, and the never a priest could I get!” said Janet, in much distress. “The mair part hae gone awa’ like ither folk, and the lave willna come when it’s the sickness. There’s ane frae St. Mary’s Kirk might hae come, but he’s ill himsel the day. Anither — ”
But Mary did not stay to hear the detailed account of her failures. With a look of anguish she put her hand to her head, murmuring, “Too late! Too late I” then hurried back to her father, and knelt down beside his bed.
She took his cold hand in hers, and said, as calmly as she could, “Father dear, we canna get a priest. We maun trust in the guid God aboon, and in the blessed Virgin.”
“Nae priest — nae priest!” said the dying man, with a bewildered look. “But where’s our John?”
“We maun try to pray,” answered Mary, and she began in faltering tones to repeat a Paternoster. But the Latin words, which she could not understand, were soon exchanged for a wild agonized cry for mercy in her native tongue. And almost before she had finished, the spirit of Hugh Wigton passed away.
It is painful to linger over scenes like this, and the heart yearns to escape from the thoughts they suggest. But for once, at least, let us dare to face the bitter, bitter truth; it may have its lessons for us. Were there not many deathbeds in the plague-stricken town no brighter than that of Hugh Wigton? We have every reason to suppose it. For it must be remembered, that even had Janet Duncan succeeded in procuring a priest, the rites he would have administered might have made the dying man more comfortable, but could not have made him safer. Not having Christ, what had he in which to trust I Are not the same awful tragedies still enacted before us day by day I Dare we ask ourselves how many, even from the midst of a nominally Christian land, “go to the generation of their fathers, and never see light?” And meanwhile we — even we who have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come — do we not too often eat and drink, buy and sell and get gain, and pursue our various schemes of business and pleasure, all too heedless of “the exceeding great and bitter cry, which seems as it were to go up from the waste places of the earth, Bless us, even us also, O our Father?”