Old Saint Paul's: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire

"No!" replied the grocer, a good deal surprised—"I heard of no such promise. Nor was I aware the matter had gone so far. But have you claimed it?"

"I have," replied Leonard; "but she declined giving an answer till to-day."

"We will have it, then, at once," cried Bloundel "Come with me to her."

So saying, he led the way to the inner room, where they found Amabel and her mother. At the sight of Leonard, the former instantly cast down her eyes.

"Amabel," said her father, in a tone of greater severity than he had ever before used towards her, "all that has passed is known to me. I shall take another and more fitting opportunity to speak to you on your ill-advised conduct. I am come for a different purpose. You have given Leonard Holt a promise (I need not tell you of what nature), and he claims its fulfilment."

"If he insists upon my compliance," replied Amabel, in a tremulous voice, "I must obey. But it will make me wretched."

"Then I at once release you," replied Leonard. "I value your happiness far more than my own."

"You deserve better treatment, Leonard," said Bloundel; "and I am sorry my daughter cannot discern what is for her good. Let us hope that time will work a change in your favour."

"No," replied the apprentice, bitterly; "I will no longer delude myself with any such vain expectation."

"Amabel," observed the grocer, "as your father—as your wellwisher—I should desire to see you wedded to Leonard. But I have told your mother, and now tell you, that I will not control your inclinations, and will only attempt to direct you so far as I think likely to be conducive to your happiness. On another point, I must assume a very different tone. You can no longer plead ignorance of the designs of the depraved person who besets you. You may not be able to forget him—but you can avoid him. If you see him alone again—if but for a moment—I cast you off for ever. Yes, for ever," he repeated, with stern emphasis.

"I will never voluntarily see him again," replied Amabel, tremblingly.

"You have heard my determination," rejoined her father. "Do you still adhere to your resolution of remaining with me, Leonard?" he added, turning to the apprentice. "If what has just passed makes any alteration in your wishes, state so, frankly."

"I will stay," replied Leonard.

"There will be one advantage, which I did not foresee, in closing my house," remarked the grocer aside to the apprentice. "It will effectually keep away this libertine earl."

"Perhaps so," replied the other. "But I have more faith in my own vigilance than in bolts and bars."

Bloundel and Leonard then returned to the shop, where the former immediately began to make preparations for storing his house; and in the prosecution of his scheme he was greatly aided by the apprentice.

The grocer's dwelling, as has been stated, was large and commodious. It was three stories high; and beneath the ground-floor there were kitchens and extensive cellars. Many of the rooms were spacious, and had curiously carved fireplaces, walls pannelled with fine brown oak, large presses, and cupboards.

In the yard, at the back of the house, there was a pump, from which excellent water was obtained. There were likewise three large cisterns, supplied from the New River. Not satisfied with this, and anxious to obtain water in which no infected body could have lain, or clothes have been washed, Bloundel had a large tank placed within the cellar, and connecting it by pipes with the pump, he contrived an ingenious machine, by which he could work the latter from within the house—thus making sure of a constant supply of water direct from the spring.

He next addressed himself to the front of the house, where he fixed a pulley, with a rope and hook attached to it, to the beam above one of the smaller bay windows on the second story. By this means, he could let down a basket or any other article into the street, or draw up whatever he desired; and as he proposed using this outlet as the sole means of communication with the external world when his house was closed, he had a wooden shutter made in the form of a trap-door, which he could open and shut at pleasure.

Here it was his intention to station himself at certain hours of the day, and whenever he held any communication below, to flash off a pistol, so that the smoke of the powder might drive back the air, and purify any vapour that found entrance of its noxious particles.

He laid down to himself a number of regulations, which will be more easily shown and more clearly understood, on arriving at the period when his plans came to be in full operation. To give an instance, however—if a letter should be conveyed to him by means of the pulley, he proposed to steep it in a solution of vinegar and sulphur; and when dried and otherwise fumigated, to read it at a distance by the help of strong glasses.

In regard to provisions, after a careful calculation, he bought upwards of three thousand pounds' weight of hard sea-biscuits, similar to those now termed captain's biscuits, and had them stowed away in hogsheads. He next ordered twenty huge casks of the finest flour, which he had packed up with the greatest care, as if for a voyage to Barbadoes or Jamaica. As these were brought in through the yard an accident had well-nigh occurred which might have proved fatal to him. While superintending the labours of Leonard and Blaize, who were rolling the casks into the house—having stowed away as many as he conveniently could in the upper part of the premises—he descended to the cellar, and, opening a door at the foot of a flight of steps leading from the yard, called to them to lower the remaining barrels with ropes below. In the hurry, Blaize rolled a cask towards the open door, and in another instant it would have fallen upon the grocer, and perhaps have crushed him, but for the interposition of Leonard. Bloundel made no remark at the time; but he never forgot the service rendered him by the apprentice.

To bake the bread required an oven, and he accordingly built one in the garret, laying in a large stock of wood for fuel. Neither did he neglect to provide himself with two casks of meal.

But the most important consideration was butcher's meat; and for this purpose he went to Rotherhithe, where the plague had not yet appeared, and agreed with a butcher to kill him four fat bullocks, and pickle and barrel them as if for sea stores. He likewise directed the man to provide six large barrels of pickled pork, on the same understanding. These were landed at Queenhithe, and brought up to Wood-street, so that they passed for newly-landed grocery.

Hams and bacon forming part of his own trade, he wrote to certain farmers with whom he was in the habit of dealing, to send him up an unlimited supply of flitches and gammons; and his orders being promptly and abundantly answered, he soon found he had more bacon than he could possibly consume. He likewise laid in a good store of tongues, hung beef, and other dried meats.

As to wine, he already had a tolerable stock; but he increased it by half a hogshead of the best canary he could procure; two casks of malmsey, each containing twelve gallons; a quarter-cask of Malaga sack; a runlet of muscadine; two small runlets of aqua vitae; twenty gallons of aniseed water; and two eight-gallon runlets of brandy. To this he added six hogsheads of strongly-hopped Kent ale, calculated for keeping, which he placed in a cool cellar, together with three hogsheads of beer, for immediate use. Furthermore, he procured a variety of distilled waters for medicinal purposes, amongst which he included a couple of dozen of the then fashionable and costly preparation, denominated plague-water.

As, notwithstanding all his precautions, it was not impossible that some of his household might be attacked by the distemper, he took care to provide proper remedies, and, to Blaize's infinite delight, furnished himself with mithridates, Venice treacle, diascorium, the pill rufus (oh! how the porter longed to have the key of the medicine chest!), London treacle, turpentine, and other matters. He likewise collected a number of herbs and simples; as Virginian snakeweed, contrajerva, pestilence-wort, angelica, elecampane, zedoary, tormentil, valerian, lovage, devils-bit, dittany, master-wort, rue, sage, ivy-berries, and walnuts; together with bole ammoniac, terra sigillata, bezoar-water, oil of sulphur, oil of vitriol, and other compounds. His store of remedies was completed by a tun of the best white-wine vinegar, and a dozen jars of salad-oil.

Regulating his supplies by the provisions he had laid in, he purchased a sufficient stock of coals and fagots to last him during the whole period of his confinement; and he added a small barrel of gunpowder, and a like quantity of sulphur for fumigation.

His eatables would not have been complete without cheese; and he therefore ordered about six hundredweight from Derbyshire, Wiltshire, and Leicestershire, besides a couple of large old cheeses from Rostherne, in Cheshire—even then noted for the best dairies in the whole county. Several tubs of salted butter were sent him out of Berkshire, and a few pots, from Suffolk.

It being indispensable, considering the long period he meant to close his house, to provide himself and his family with every necessary, he procured a sufficient stock of wearing apparel, hose, shoes and boots. Spice, dried fruit, and other grocery articles, were not required, because he already possessed them. Candles also formed an article of his trade, and lamp-oil; but he was recommended by Doctor Hodges, from a fear of the scurvy, to provide a plentiful supply of lemon and lime juice.

To guard against accident, he also doubly stocked his house with glass, earthenware, and every article liable to breakage. He destroyed all vermin, such as rats and mice, by which the house was infested; and the only live creatures he would suffer to be kept were a few poultry. He had a small hutch constructed near the street-door, to be used by the watchman he meant to employ; and he had the garrets fitted up with beds to form an hospital, if any part of the family should be seized with the distemper, so that the sick might be sequestered from the sound.

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III.

THE QUACK DOCTORS

Patience, it may be remembered, had promised Blaize to give him her earnings to enable him to procure a fresh supply of medicine, and about a week after he had received the trifling amount (for he had been so constantly employed by the grocer that he had no opportunity of getting out before), he sallied forth to visit a neighbouring apothecary, named Parkhurst, from whom he had been in the habit of purchasing drugs, and who occupied a small shop not far from the grocer's, on the opposite side of the street. Parkhurst appeared overjoyed to see him, and, without giving him time to prefer his own request, inquired after his master's family—whether they were all well, especially fair Mistress Amabel—and, further, what was the meaning of the large supplies of provision which he saw daily conveyed to the premises? Blaize shook his head at the latter question, and for some time refused to answer it. But being closely pressed by Parkhurst, he admitted that his master was about to shut up his house.

"Shut up his house!" exclaimed Parkhurst. "I never heard of such a preposterous idea. If he does so, not one of you will come out alive. But I should hope that he will be dissuaded from his rash design."

"Dissuaded!" echoed Blaize. "You don't know my master. He's as obstinate as a mule when he takes a thing into his head. Nothing will turn him. Besides, Doctor Hodges sanctions and even recommends the plan."

"I have no opinion of Doctor Hodges," sneered the apothecary. "He is not fit to hold a candle before a learned friend of mine, a physician, who is now in that room. The person I speak of thoroughly understands the pestilence, and never fails to cure every case that comes before him. No shutting up houses with him. He is in possession of an infallible remedy."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Blaize, pricking up his ears. "What is his name?"

"His name!" cried Parkhurst, with a puzzled look. "How strange it should slip my memory! Ah, now I recollect. It is Doctor Calixtus Bottesham."

"A singular name, truly," remarked Blaize; "but it sounds like that of a clever man."

"Doctor Calixtus Bottesham is a wonderful man," returned the apothecary. "I have never met with his like. I would trumpet forth his merits through the whole city, but that it would ruin my trade. The plague is our harvest, as my friend Chowles, the coffin-maker, says, and it will not do to stop it—ha! ha!"

"It is too serious a subject to laugh at," returned Blaize, gravely.

"But are the doctor's fees exorbitant?"

"To the last degree," replied Parkhurst. "I am afraid to state how much he asks."

"I fear I shall not be able to consult him, then," said Blaize, turning over the coin in his pocket; "and yet I should greatly like to do so."

"Have no fear on that score," returned the apothecary. "I have been able to render him an important service, and he will do anything for me. He shall give you his advice gratis."

"Thank you! thank you!" cried Blaize, transported with delight.

"Wait here a moment, and I will ascertain whether he will see you," replied Parkhurst.

So saying, he quitted the porter, who amused himself during his absence by studying the labels affixed to the jars and bottles on the shelves. He had much ado to restrain himself from opening some of them, and tasting their contents.