“Hold!  I have a plan,” cried Joseph, whose wits were sharpened by the pressing nature of the business in hand; “listen, and I will expound it.  Tomorrow morning I will sally forth with a barrow laden with eggs, vegetables, and fruit; and I will enter the city as one of the country folks for the market, with whom none interfere at the barriers.  I will e’en sell my goods to whoever will buy them, and at the bottom of the barrow thou shalt put one of thy cotton gowns and market aprons, Aunt Mary.  Then will I go to Mistress Gertrude and tell her all.  I shall learn of the welfare of those at home, and will come back with her at my side.  The watch will but take her for a market woman, and we shall both pass unchecked and unhindered.  By noon tomorrow Gertrude shall be here!

“Nay, hinder me not, good aunt.  We must all adventure ourselves somewhat in this dire distress and peril.  Sure, if Providence kept me safe in yon pest house yesterday, I need not fear to return to the city upon an errand of mercy such as may save my brother’s life!”

CHAPTER XIII.  HAPPY MEETINGS.

“Reuben found!  Reuben alive!  O Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!” and Dorcas burst into tears of joy and relief, and sobbed aloud upon her brother’s neck.

Joseph had brought his news straight to Dorcas, knowing that she at least would be certainly found within Lady Scrope’s house.  He was secretly afraid to go home first, lest the fatal red cross upon the door should tell its tale of woe, or lest the whole house itself should be shut up and desolate, like the majority of the houses he had passed in the forlorn city that morning.  He felt, however, an almost superstitious confidence that Lady Scrope’s house would defy the infection.  He was decidedly of the opinion that that redoubtable dame was a witch, and that she had charms which kept the plague at bay.  He therefore first sought out the sister with whom he felt certain he could obtain speech; and she had drawn him into a little parlour hard by the street door, in great astonishment at seeing him there, and fearful at first (as folks had grown to be of late) that he was the bearer of evil tidings.

The joy and relief were therefore so great that she could not restrain her tears, and between laughing, crying, and repeating in astonished snatches the words of explanation which fell from Joseph’s lips, she made such an unwonted commotion in the ordinarily silent house, that soon the tap of a stick could have been heard by ears less preoccupied coming down the stairs and along the passage, and the door was pushed open to admit the little upright figure of the mistress of the house.

“Hoity toity! art thou bereft of thy senses, child?  What in fortune’s name means all this?

“Boy, who art thou? and what dost thou here?  A brother, forsooth!  Come with some news, perchance?  Well, well, well; how goes it in the city?  Are any left alive?  They say at the rate we are going now, it will take but a month more to destroy the city even as Sodom was destroyed!”