“I, too, have heard sad tales of the mortality,” said Dinah, raising her calm voice and speaking very seriously.  “I met a good physician, under whom I often laboured amongst the sick, and he tells me that there be poor stricken wretches from whom all the world flee in terror the moment it appears they have the distemper upon them.  Many have died already untended and uncared for, whilst others have in the madness of the fever and pain burst out of the rooms in which they have been shut up, and have run up and down the streets, spreading terror in their path, till they have dropped down dead or dying, to be carried to graveyard or pest house as the case may be.  But who can tell how many other victims such a miserable creature may not have infected first?”

“Ay, that is the terror of it,” said Harmer.  “All are saying that nurses must be found to care for the sick, and many are very resolved that the houses where the distemper is found should be straitly shut up and guarded by watchmen, that none go forth.  It is a hard thing for the whole to be thus shut in with the infected; but as men truly say, how shall the whole city escape if something be not done to restrain the people from passing to and fro, and spreading the distemper everywhere?”

“I have thought,” said Dinah, very quietly, “that it may be given to me to offer myself as a nurse for these poor persons.  I have passed unscathed through many perils before now.  Once I verily believe I was with one who died even of this distemper, albeit the physician called it the spotted fever, which frights men less than the name of plague.  There be many herbs and simples and decoctions which men say are of great value in keeping the infection at bay.  And even were it not so, we must not be thinking only at such times of saving our own lives.  There be some that must be ready to risk even life, if they may serve their brethren.  The good physicians are prepared to do this, to say nothing of the Magistrates and those who have the management of this great city at such a time.  And it seems to me that women must always be ready to tend the sick even in times of peril.  I seem to hear a call that bids me offer myself for this work; but none else shall suffer through me.  If I go, I return hither no more.  I shall live amongst the sick until this judgment be overpast, or until I myself be called hence, as may well be.”

All faces were grave and full of awe.  Yet perhaps none who knew Dinah were overmuch surprised at her words.  Her life had been lived amongst the sick for many years.  She had never shrunk from danger, or had spared herself when the need was pressing.  Her sister Rachel, although the tears stood in her eyes, said nothing to dissuade her.

Nor indeed was there much time for discussion then, for the Master Builder looked in at that moment with a face full of concern.  He brought the news that fresh revelations were being hourly made as to the terrible rapidity with which the plague was spreading in the parishes without the walls; and he added that even the gay and giddy Court had been at last alarmed, and that the King had been heard to say he should quit Whitehall and retire with his Court and his minions to Oxford in the course of a week or a fortnight, unless matters became speedily much better.