Part 6

"The survivor was a boy of ten years of age; he was one of the few whom the plague had touched and spared. Me it had passed by harmless. But the destruction caused by the pestilence exceeded all calculation. As in my case, whole families were carried off, and districts entirely depopulated. The pits that were dug to throw in the dead were quickly filled, and none were strong enough to dig others. The dead cart stood in the street with its load piled up; for both the driver and the horse had been destroyed by the pestilence. Physicians and surgeons appeared to have been the earliest of its victims. They came to visit their patients, and they died by the bedside. All remedies were tried without avail; all precautions were used, but they were equally useless. There were different opinions existing as to its origin. The royalists said that it was a punishment for the sins of the republicans; and the republicans retorted by proclaiming that it was a judgment on the profligacy of the royalists. Religious fanatics went running about the deserted streets, with streaming hair and blood-shot eyes, shouting out, in piercing tones, 'Wo! wo! the day of judgment is at hand!'"

This lasted for the better portion of a year; and, after putting the boy in a place of safety, when the pestilence was over, as I journeyed through the country to notice the effects it had produced, where I had once known crowded thoroughfares, I passed along without meeting a single inhabitant. The country appeared to have been completely unpeopled; and in the city, the few persons I met with only made the immense mortality which had existed appear more great. I inquired for the government, and found that not a trace of it was in existence. I asked for the army, and I was shown about a couple of hundred men. I called a meeting of the citizens in the metropolis, and they all came; and they filled a moderate sized room. I explained to them the deplorable state into which the plague had reduced the country, and I asked their counsel and assistance to form some sort of government to manage its affairs. There was a melancholy silence for some minutes. None attempted to speak. Their hearts seemed too full for utterance. At last one of the citizens ventured to wish that I would do what I thought best for the community; and I did do what I thought best. I travelled through every part of this once populous island to notice with my own eyes the exact state of the remaining population. Some cities I found deserted; in others two-thirds of their buildings were untenanted; the rank grass was growing in the public streets, and the gardens of the rich were filled with nettles.

"But the measure of afflictions for this unhappy country had not yet been filled up. No sooner had the pestilence abated, than another enemy, scarcely less dreadful, made its appearance. The continued ravages of war had prevented the tilling of the fields. No one would attempt to sow, knowing how insecure would be his ownership of the crop he might produce. There had been no grain, and no fruits, and no vegetables; and the cattle had died of the plague, or had been destroyed by the enemy. It was in vain attempting to get a supply from foreign countries. Our commerce had been destroyed, for no nation would hold communication with a people among whom raged so destructive a pestilence. They avoided the shores of England as if death was on its soil; and any vessel attempting to communicate with them, or to enter one of their ports, was fired at and sunk. The consequence was, our ships lay rotting in the docks, and their crews were either dead, or had dispersed over the island, and were not to be found. The terrific visitation of famine was now upon us. Every thing was eaten that the human stomach could be brought to swallow. Things the most loathsome to the taste, and offensive to the eyes, were readily and ravenously devoured. Then the cheek sunk; the eye-ball fell; the flesh dwindled away; and all crawled with half lifeless limbs in search of any substance that might lessen the cravings of their appetites. But at last every thing that was digestible disappeared, and the skeleton forms of the sufferers were stretched stiffly on the place where they fell--some in madness, some in despair, and all in agony and dread.

"There was no opportunity allowed me for legislating with any advantage. I thought of every plan that afforded the slightest assistance towards lessening the dreadful effects of the calamity which the whole country was enduring; but I met with no one to second my exertions. The few who retained the use of their faculties were feeble and emaciated. Famine was in their gaunt limbs, and despair upon their aching hearts. No one appeared inclined to pay the slightest attention to any thing but his own sufferings. There was no authority but that of the strong, and they who retained their physical power the longest, robbed the dying of such slight nourishment as they had acquired. The rich would bring out their treasures and offer them for a meal, and when some avaricious wretch was found to make the exchange, one more strong than either would come by, and wrest the food from the impoverished, and the wealth from the miser; and both died within the hour. The breast of the mother became dry, and the infant was abandoned to starve when it became an incumbrance to the famished parent. Cats, dogs, rats, mice, and every kind of animal, no matter how disgusting in its habits, had been greedily devoured; birds, fish, and insects, that had previously been considered loathsome, were sought after as delicacies; and weeds, roots, the leaves of trees, offal, and even many things still more objectionable, became the daily food of many who had been accustomed to the most luxurious fare.

"Finding that I could do no good among the scanty band of skeletons that clung to a lingering existence, I determined on endeavouring to make my way to the northern part of the island, where an industrious and hardy race had managed to retain their independence and prosperity during the wars, the pestilence, and the famine, that ravaged its southern portion. My grandson was too young to walk great distances; so, when he was tired, I placed him upon my shoulder, and thus we journeyed on our way. Our food was acorns, berries, roots, and leaves. Sometimes I was enabled to catch a fish, or a bird, or a small animal; but these were luxuries seldom to be enjoyed. We passed several parties apparently intent upon the same object as ourselves; but many were there of the groups who laid themselves down on the road-side weary and famishing, and there perished. Continually I came upon some individual made desperate by his hunger, scratching up the earth with his hands in search of the worms it contained, which, if found, were eaten with as much enjoyment as the most delicious meats, and if the search was fruitless, the dry soil was crammed into the mouth as a substitute. Very few of the travellers could have reached the end of their journey, for we continued to pass the dying and the dead as far as we proceeded. Sometimes a solitary wretch would be found prostrate at the foot of a tree, the bark of which he had evidently been gnawing; further on a family of children were discovered, with their little bodies shrunk to the bone, and the parents at a short distance, with their faces turned from them, as if they could not look upon their sufferings; and in another place, a lover and his mistress lay clasped in each other's fleshless arms.

"We were crossing an extensive and barren moor, when we came before a group of dead bodies, among which, to my exceeding astonishment, I beheld a child--a delicate girl of five or six years of age--busily occupied in chasing a butterfly. The scene was so extraordinary that I stood gazing on it for a considerable period before I could determine what to do. The insect's gaudy wings kept fluttering over the lifeless forms that were cold and stiff on the ground, sometimes alighting on a hand, sometimes on a face; and the child, in an ecstasy of delight, screaming, and laughing, and stretching out its little arms, pursued it from place to place. What a time was this for reflection! Here was life in the midst of death--the pursuit of pleasure among the most fatal and least endurable examples of pain. It was a wonderful sight! The girl seemed to know neither want nor sorrow; and continued her sport, indifferent to the spectral shapes that lay extended at her feet. Their ghastly stare, and gaunt visages, had no terrors for her. The hunt of the butterfly occupied all her thoughts, and the hope of attaining possession of its beautiful colours seemed the only desire entertained. After watching her movements with indescribable interest for several minutes, I advanced towards the child, and invited her to go with me. I had considerable difficulty to get her to leave the butterfly; and when I led her away from the spot, she chatted with infantile volubility, as if there was nothing else but the butterfly in the world.

"I found the people of the northern provinces hospitable, and with them I lived for nearly half a century. They escaped the ravages of the pestilence by not allowing any infected persons from the neighbouring counties, who crowded towards the borders, to enter into their territory. None had presented themselves during the prevalence of the famine but myself; and their own frugality saved them from the horrors which had desolated England. They looked upon the southern portion of the island as a doomed country, for although several parties from the north had gone there for the purpose of forming settlements, they either returned after a short stay, stating that neither cattle nor crops would nourish on the land, or were never more heard of, and were supposed to have fallen victims to the pirates who occasionally visited the coast. I passed my time in educating the two children of whom I had taken charge, and both made great progress under my instructions. The boy became a fine, active, intelligent man, the girl an admirable example of womankind; and as I found that their hearts were for each other, in due time I had them made man and wife. I have outlived them and all their progeny, with the exception of Lilya, whom, after the decease of her family, I took with me to England, having at the time an ardent desire to revisit its desolated shores.

"What I found England I need scarcely describe; you see it before you. It was a complete ruin. A sad and miserable remnant of her people did strive to till the land; but the soil refused to give sustenance to the seed, and the cultivator could gather nothing but a harvest of weeds. The earth was abandoned for the waters, and the farmers became fishermen; but the sea and the river gave an inadequate supply. One by one the inhabitants dropped off, till at last the only human creatures within the country were myself and Lilya. We managed to subsist by hunting and fishing. Our fare was not at all times very delicate, and was seldom very plentiful; but we provided for ourselves tolerably well. We were obliged to rely upon our own resources; for the savage appearance of the island, and the belief that it was doomed to destruction, prevented our being visited by any vessels from the continent; and even the pirates from the neighbouring islands, having found that the country contained nothing to tempt them to a visit, turned their attention to more opulent regions. Lilya and I, therefore, had the whole land to ourselves, and over it we held absolute sovereignty. Even the savage monsters of the forest appeared to acknowledge our supremacy, for none offered to molest us. We took our way through deserted piles and fallen monuments; and if we disturbed the lion in his lair, or the eagle in his eyrie, they made way for our approach, and returned to their haunts when we were gone.

"Thus passed the time. Lilya grew up as you see--a child of the forest, skilful in snaring game, and in preserving skins; affectionate in her manner, gentle in her temper, and shy as a dove in her nest. As for me, I was a wanderer over the lands of my forefathers. The stream, the vale, the mountain, and the plain, were accustomed to my visits. I became a denizen of the forest and the plain--a resident in the deserted cities. I found a dwelling in the palace and the hut; and all places were my home. I experienced a melancholy pleasure in beholding the scenes in which the greatness of my country had once been exhibited. I walked among the crumbling ruins of her once gorgeous halls. The sunken roofs of her stately cathedrals for me were full of religious awe and veneration; the dilapidated battlements of her ancient castles seemed still to show the dauntless valour of the spirits by whom they had been defended; and the moss and lichens that disfigured her public monuments gave only a fresher interest to the worth they represented. From these I gathered the memories of a better time, and the glories of the past warmed my old heart with the vigour of a second youth. I lived over again the departed age--I recalled to life the buried generations--I contemplated the happiness which the grave had long since hid in her bosom--and the discoloured stones around me seemed to echo the busy goings on of an industrious population. Free hearts were throbbing proudly around me, and the stillness of the desert along which I stalked was made alive with the pleasures of the young, the noble, and the brave.

"Gone is your glory, oh my country!" exclaimed the old man, in a more feeble voice; "your greatness among the nations is put down; your magnificence has dwindled to a heap of stones; your power has nothing by which it may be known. If the stranger come in a few years, and inquire for the city which was the wonder of the world, none shall tell him, for both city and citizens will have crumbled into dust. If he ask for the people whose name was a glory in every clime that exists, he shall find no better reply than the echo of his own voice. He may wander over the brave old island in search of places that history has made immortal, without being able to discover a trace of their existence. The thistle and the nettle will hide the graves of its illustrious; ravenous beasts will prowl in its cities; and all that is noble and grand in its localities will be crushed, swallowed, and lost in one devouring ruin; and I, that am here as an ancient tree with gnarled trunk and brittle boughs, that stands up as if unnoticed by the destroyer, when the rest of the forest have mouldered into the soil, will then have perished and passed away, and not even a remembrance of my name will be left upon the land."

"Noble old man!" exclaimed Oriel Porphyry with fervour, "there is no one here who does not sympathise with your situation. I would endeavour to console you, but I am afraid that your case is one beyond all consolation. What can I do to render you assistance? Let me prevail on you to leave this land, which has been so completely devoted to destruction, and I will find you a more attractive home, and friends as kind as those you have lost."

"Leave this land!" loudly cried the Englishman, apparently astonished at the suggestion. "For a hundred and twenty years this island has been the attraction of all my thoughts; my love for it arose from admiration of its magnificence, and my heart still clings to it in its utter annihilation. Do you think it would be possible for me, after having made myself so familiar with its ruins, to find pleasure in the prosperity of a far off country? No! to me the world hath nothing like it. What are smiling landscapes? What are stately edifices? What are fields busy with life, and cities astir with industry, if on a foreign shore? Its homes are not my home--its graves are not the graves of my people. But these tottering walls and depopulated lands are mine; I hold them in undisputed possession; I have a claim on them which has been long acknowledged; and they have a claim on me which I feel I must speedily prepare to liquidate. No: leave me to the desolation in which I dwell. It has become habitual--it has become necessary. I have long, perhaps too long, been its inhabitant; but the hour comes when another ruin must be added to those which now encumber the soil."

"And then what is to become of the gentle Lilya?" inquired the young merchant.

"Ah! 'tis of that I am ever anxious," replied the old man, with a look of affectionate solicitude towards his youthful relative. "The child is full of amiable ways--she is artless and untutored: I cannot part with her; and yet to leave her unprotected in this wilderness is a source of constant disquietude to me."

"If you entrust her to me," added Oriel, "by the honour of manhood I promise to behave to her as a brother; and I will place her under the protection of a lady from whom she will receive every attention her youth and unfriended situation requires."

"In her name I can promise all that she stands most in need of," said Zabra.

"What say you, my Lilya?" inquired the Englishman. "Will you go with the strangers? Will you leave this wretched country, and seek one where happiness awaits you?"

"I will have no other country but yours, oh my protector!" exclaimed the girl, as she flung herself into the old man's arms. "These strangers are good; but they can never be so good as you have been: and these old walls too--where shall I meet with such verdant moss, or such beautiful ivy, as they possess? While you live, with you must my existence be passed: and when you have ceased to lead me in my wanderings through the silent forest or the deserted city, I care not where I go; for I shall never again find the parent, the friend and guardian I shall have lost."

The Englishman pressed her more closely to his breast.

CHAP. VI.

THE DEATH OF THE LAST OF THE ENGLISHMEN.

"My life is drawing rapidly to its close," faltered the old man; "my weary pilgrimage is nearly over. Farewell, ye solitary halls and voiceless palaces! Farewell, ye grassy streets and ivied porticoes! The eyes that have gazed upon ye in your splendour, and watched ye gradually passing into ruin, will soon be darkened and closed. The heart that hath drawn so many pleasures from your unfading braveries is fast sinking into that state of nothingness to which you all hasten. City of the silent! he who worshipped your prosperity, and loved your decay, must now pass from amidst your ruined dwellings. Like your time-honoured walls, I totter and tremble, and am ready to fall upon the earth that supports me--the ivy seems twining up my unsteady limbs, and the moss is spreading over my ancient heart. Farewell, ye untasted pastures, ye uncultivated fields, ye gardens of weeds and orchards of brambles--the wildness of your looks shall welcome me no more. Farewell, ye hoary mountains and savage rocks, ye untrodden forests and unhonored streams--the same iron hand that hath visited ye so heavily, as heavily must fall on me. I pass from among ye, oh land of my fathers! Your earth shall receive me to her breast!"

The old man lay on a green bank overgrown with wild flowers, while Oriel and Zabra supported his head. Lilya was reclining at his side, with one of his hands at her lips, and her face hid on his breast, and she spoke only in convulsive sobs. Tourniquet stood near him feeling his pulse, and the professor was close beside endeavouring to administer consolation. At a short distance stood the captain and midshipman, with part of the crew of the Albatross, apparently taking a deep interest in the scene. They were congregated together near a shelving hillock in the neighbourhood of an extensive marsh. Before them was an ancient arch of marble, and beyond that, the ruins of a structure evidently once of very great extent and magnificence, with many statues, some standing where they had been placed, and others lying mutilated among the heaps of stones that were piled up around the place for a considerable distance. The sun was declining in the heavens, and the day was bright and warm. Ruins, in different stages of decay, were observed as far as the eye could reach in every direction, except towards the west, where an open space showed the distant hills, over which the sun was hastening his descent.

It was evident that the Englishman was dying. His venerable brow was covered with a thick perspiration, and his fine countenance had become more pallid and anxious than it had previously been. Yet his eyes beamed as if they had lost none of their accustomed brilliancy, and his noble form possessed the same dignity which had first attracted the attention of the voyagers. He was still in possession of all his faculties, and there was an energy in his manner, and an impressiveness in his language, which proved that the spirit that had outlived so many generations had lost none of its youthful vigour.

"Your pulse is getting more feeble, don't you see?" said the doctor, with much sympathy for his patient; "and I regret to be obliged to agree with you in stating that your hours are numbered. You have lived far beyond the usual term of life, and it must be a great consolation to you, in your present state, to know that you have lived all that time in honour, and worth, and virtue."

"Be grateful to Providence that you have been so long spared," observed Fortyfolios. "The age of man is threescore and ten, and this is but rarely attained; and yet your existence has been prolonged to nearly double that length of time. How much have you to be thankful for! Consider the myriads of human beings who are cut off unprepared;--who die in infancy, in early youth, or perfect manhood--who just begin to taste the sweets of life, and then are hurried from its enjoyment. Consider the advantages you have enjoyed over your fellow-countrymen, who were destroyed by war, by pestilence, and famine. You have much reason to congratulate yourself. You have been spared, doubtless, for some admirable purpose which our finite reason cannot comprehend. Reflect upon these things, and you will be enabled to meet the approach of death without apprehension."

"What are your wishes concerning the disposal of Lilya?" inquired Oriel Porphyry. "Remember that it is impossible that she can be left alone upon this island with the slightest comfort to herself or pleasure to others. The offer I made to you the other day I repeat. It is not probable that her welfare can be secured more effectively in any other way. Let me implore you then, as you value her future happiness, to take advantage of my accidental arrival, and give me authority to bear her to a secure and honourable asylum."