CHAPTER III.  DRAWING NEARER.

“Brother Reuben, I cannot think what can be the reason, but my Lady Scrope has bidden me beg of thee to give her speech upon the morrow.  All this day she has been in a mighty pleasant humour:  she gave me this silken neckerchief when I left today, and bid me bring my brother with me on the morrow—­and she means thee, Reuben.”

“What can be the meaning of that?” asked Rachel Harmer, with a look of curiosity.  “Doth she often speak to thee of thy kindred, child?”

“If the whim be on her, and she has naught else to amuse her, she will bid me tell of the life at home, and of our neighbours and friends,” answered Dorcas.  “But never has she spoke as she did today.  Nor can I guess why she would have speech with Reuben.”

“I can guess shrewdly at that,” said the young man.  “It so befell this morning that I found a party of roisterers at her door, who were marking it with a red cross, as though it were a plague-stricken house—­as the Magistrates talk of marking them now if the distemper spreads much further and wider.  The bold lady had herself put these fellows to the rout by pouring pitch upon them from a window above; but I stopped to rebuke the foremost of them myself, and to erase their handiwork from the door.  I did not know that I was either seen or known; but methinks my Lady Scrope has eyes in the back of her head, as the saying goes.”

“You may well say that!” cried Dorcas, with a laugh and a shrug.  “Never was there such a woman for knowing everything and everybody.  But she spoke not to me of any roisterers.  Would I had been there to see her pouring her filthy compound over them!  She always has it ready.  How she must have rejoiced to find a use for it at last!”

“It is an evil and a scurvy jest at such a time to mock at the peril which is at our very doors, and which naught but the mercy of God can avert from us,” said the master of the house, very gravely.

Then, looking round upon his assembled household, he added in the same very serious way, “I have been this day into the heart of the city.  I have spoken with many of the authorities there.  The Lord Mayor and the Magistrates are in great anxiety, and I fear me there can be no longer any doubt that the distemper is spreading fearfully.  It has not yet appeared within the city nor upon the other side of the river; but in the western parishes it is spreading every way, and they say that all who are able are fleeing away from their houses.  Perchance for those who can do so this may be the safest thing to do.  But soon they will not be permitted to leave, unless they have a bill of health from the Lord Mayor, as in the country beyond the honest folks are taking alarm, and are crying out that we are like to spread the plague all over the kingdom.”