duce her to the life of a minister’s wife in a wild place, and among wild people. Their home was the Tillage of Eyam, in Derbyshire, then thickly peopled with miners. In the green dell, and on the breezy hills below and above Eyam, they and their children enjoyed country health and pleasures for a little while. Then the news came of the Great Plague in London; and then of its spreading through the country: but the place was so breezy and so retired, that there might be hope of its being spared the visitation. The winter came, and thanksgivings were fervent for the health the people of Eyam had enjoyed. In the spring, however, when nobody was thinking of dreading the plague, it broke out in the village. Tradition says, it was from some clothes that arrived from a distant place. As soon as it appeared that the mischief was past arresting, the young mother thought first of her children,—or at least, pleaded first for them, in imploring her husband to leave the place with his family. He knew his duty too well. He was firm about remaining; and his desire was that she should carry away her children to a place of safety, aud remain there. This she refused with equal firmness: so they sent away the children, and set to work to nurse all Eyam. Out of seventy-six families, two hundred and fifty-nine persons died. The pastor and his wife shut themselves up with the people, allowing nobody to come in or go out, in order to confine the calamity to the village. By his faculty of organisation, all were fed; and by her devotedness, all were nursed, as far as seemed possible, till she sank in the midst of them. Her husband in good time engaged the country people of the surrounding districts to leave food and other supplies at stated places on the hills at fixed hours, when he pledged himself that they should encounter nobody from the village; and these supplies were fetched away at intermediate hours, without any one person ever taking advantage of the opportunity to get away. There could be no stronger evidence of the hold their pastor had on their affections. In a number of the Gentleman’s Magazine, published about the close of the last century, there is an engraving of a rock, called “Mompesson’s Pulpit.” It is a natural arch in the rock, near Eyam, where he stood to read prayers and preach during the plague,—the people being ranged on the open hill-side opposite, and within reach of his voice. This was to avoid the risks of collecting together in the church.
Catherine Mompesson nursed her neighbours from early spring till August, when she died. Amidst the appalling sights and sounds, of which her husband’s letters convey a dreadful idea, she sustained herself and him, and all about them. His immediate expectation of following her is shown by his letter of the 1st of September to Sir George Saville, about the choice of his successor and the execution of his will: but he lived till his 70th year—still the good clergyman to his life’s end.
It was domestic affection, evidently, which threw Catherine Mompesson into the position of a nurse. At first, she would have left the scene of sickness to preserve husband and children. It was for her husband’s sake that she remained—remained to be his helper, at any sacrifice to herself. An incident recorded in one of his letters shows the domestic affections strong in death. She had refused the “cordials” he pressed upon her, saying that she could not swallow them; but, on his suggestion of living for their children, she raised herself in bed, and made the effort. She took the medicines; but she was past saving. Her devotedness as a nurse was not impaired, but sanctified, by the influences under which she undertook the work. So the good Howard thought when he went to Eyam, before his last departure from England, to ascertain what details he could of the pestilence, and of the exemplary nurses of the sick. So think those who even yet visit the churchyard among the hills, and find out her grave, with the intimation at the foot of the suddenness of her call hence. “Cave: nescitis horam.”
Mary Pickard’s good work was of a similar nature; but even more freely undertaken. She was our contemporary, and has been only a few years dead. She was an American, born, I believe, of English parents; and, at any rate, connected with England by many relationships. In her early womanhood she visited England, previous to her marriage with Dr. Henry Ware, afterwards Divinity Professor in Harvard University. Among other relatives, she chose to visit an aunt who had early married below her station, and settled in the village of Osmotherly, on the borders of Yorkshire and Durham. On reaching the place, she found it ravaged by fever, in the way that one reads of in old books, but never dreams of seeing in the present century.
Mary Pickard could nurse. Through life she was a first-rate nurse, ready to undertake any number of patients, and to suffice to them all—having, in addition to her other nursing powers, a singular gift of serenity and cheerfulness. Full primed with these powers, she dismissed her chaise as soon as she saw how matters stood in the village; and there she remained for weeks and months. She shamed the frightened doctor, and sustained the nervous clergyman, and got up an organisation of the few who were well and strong to clean the streets and houses, and bury the dead quickly, and wash the clothes, and fetch the medicines and food. She herself seemed to the dying quite at leisure to wait upon them: yet the whole management, and no little cooking, and the entire attendance upon a large number of households, all down in the fever, rested upon her. Before she came all who were attacked died: from the day of her arrival some began to mend; but the place was nearly depopulated. She is known there by the name of “the Good Lady;” and most of the villagers never inquired about any other name.
Towards the latter end of the visitation, when she had complained of nothing, and was as cheerful as ever, and unsuspected of any capacity of wearing out, she one day sank down on the floor, and could not get up again. “Never mind!” said she. “It is only want of sleep. Just bring me some blankets, and let me lie here, and I shall do very well.” And there she lay—when awake