Bog-Myrtle and Peat | Page 5

Ganger Patie, of the black blood of the gypsy Marshalls, finding his occupation gone, cursed the minister on Glen Morrison brae; but broke neck-bone by the sudden fright of his horse and his own drunkenness at the foot of the same brae on his home-coming. They said that the minister had prophesied that in the spot where Ganger Patie had cursed the messenger of God, even there God would enter into judgment with him. And they told how the fair whitethorn hedge was blasted for ten yards about the spot where the Death Angel had waited for the blasphemer. There were four men who were willing to give warrandice that their horses had turned with them and refused to pass the place.
So the parish was exceedingly careful of its words to the minister. It left him severely alone. He even made his own porridge in the wide-sounding kitchen of the gabled manse, on the hill above the harbour. He rang with his own hands the kirk-bell on the Sabbath morn. But none came near the preachings. There was no child baptized in the parish of Dour; and no wholesome diets of catechising, where old and young might learn the Way more perfectly.
Mr. Ligartwood's brethren spoke to him and pled with him to use milder courses; but all in vain. In those days the Pope was not so autocratic in Rome as a minister in his own parish.
"They left me of their own accord, and of their own accord shall they return," said Abraham Ligartwood.
But in the fall of the year the White Death came to Dour. They say that it came from the blasted town of Kirk Oswald, where the plague had been all the summer. The men of the landward parishes set a watch on all that came out of the accursed streets. But in the night-time men with laden horses ran the blockade, for the prices to be obtained within were like those in a besieged city.
Some said that it was the farmer of Portmark who had done this thing once too often. At least it is sure that it was to his house that the Death first came in the parish of Dour. At the sound of the shrill crying, of which they every one knew the meaning, men dropped their tools in the field and fled to the hills. It was like the Day of Judgment. The household servants disappeared. Hired men and field-workers dispersed like the wave from a stone in a pool, carrying infection with them. Men fell over at their own doors with the rattle in their throats, and there lay, none daring to touch them. In Kirk Oswald town the grass grew in the vennels and along the High Street. In Dour the horses starved in the stables, the cattle in the byres.
Then came Abraham Ligartwood out of the manse of Dour. He went down to the farm towns and into the village huts and lifted the dead. He harnessed the horse in the cart, and swathed the body in sheets. He dug the graves, and laid the corpse in the kindly soil. He nursed the sick. He organised help everywhere. He went from house to stricken house with the high assured words of a messenger fresh from God.
He let out the horses to the pasture. He milked the kine, that bellowed after him with the plague of their milk. He had thought and hands for all. His courage shamed the cowards. He quickened the laggards. He stilled the agony of fear that killed three for every one who died of the White Death.
For the first time since the minister came to Dour, the kirk-bell did not ring on Sabbath, for the minister was at the other end of the parish setting a house in order whence three children had been carried. In the kirkyard there was the dull rattle of sods. The burying-party consisted of the roughest rogues in the parish, whom the minister had fetched from their hiding-holes in the hills.
Up the long roads that led to the kirk on its windy height the scanty funerals wended their way. For three weeks they say that in the kirkyard, from dawn to dusk, there was always a grave uncovered or a funeral in sight. There was no burial service in the kirkyard save the rattle of the clods; for now the minister had set the carpenters to work and coffins were being made. But the minister had prayer in all the houses ere the dead was lifted.
Then he went off to lay hot stones to the feet of another, and to get a nurse for yet another. For twenty days he never slept and seldom ate, till the plague was stayed.
The last case was on the 27th of September. Then Abraham