“Taken to the plague pit a week ago.  Just when all the world is rejoicing in the thought that the distemper is abating.  Dr. Hooker spoke truly when he said that the confidence of the people was like to be a greater peril than the disease itself.  For those who are sick now come openly abroad into the streets, no longer afraid for themselves or others, and thus it has come about that no man knows whether he is safe, and my poor boy has been taken.”

Sad indeed were the faces of all, and the two little boys were dissolved in tears, as their father told how poor Dan had fallen sick, and had succumbed on the fourth day to the poison.

“Dr. Hooker said that he was worn out with his unceasing labours, else he would not have died,” said the sorrowful father.  “He had treated many worse cases even when things were worse, and brought them round.  But Dan was worn out with all he had been doing for the past months.  He fell an easy prey; and he did not suffer much, thank God.  He lay mostly in a torpor, much as Reuben did, as I hear, but slowly sank away.  His poor mother!  She had begun to think that she was to have all her children about her yet.  But in truth we must not repine, having so many left to us, when they say there is scarce a family in all the town that has not lost its two, three, or four at best!”

It almost seemed a more sorrowful thing to lose Dan just when things were beginning to look brighter, than it would have done when the distemper was at its height.  But as the good man said, gratitude for so many spared ought to outweigh any repining for those taken.  After the first tears were shed, he gently checked in those about him the inclination to mourn, saying that God knew best, and had dealt very lovingly and bountifully with them; and that they must trust His goodness and mercy all through, and believe that He had judged mercifully and tenderly in taking their brother from them.

The sight of Reuben alive and well did much to assuage the father’s grief; for there had been a time when he had not thought to look upon the face of his firstborn in this life.  He was also greatly pleased to learn that he had another daughter in the person of gentle Gertrude, and he gladly undertook the negotiation of the purchase of his neighbour’s house, so that he should not know who the purchaser was until the right moment came.

Mary Harmer’s proposal to take in the whole family for a spell of fresh air and rest was gratefully accepted by the tired father.

“I trow it would be the greatest boon for all of us, and may likely save us from some peril,” he said, “for, as I say, men seem to be gone mad with joy that the malignity of the plague is so greatly abating, and that the houses are no longer closed.  For my own part, I would they were closed yet a little longer; but the impatience of the people would not now permit it, and they having shown themselves in the main docile and obedient these many months,