ALL THAT DAY I CONTINUED walking. Nothing blocked my way. The mist lifted. The air turned light. Still I saw no one, not even from afar. From time to time I found streams to slack my thirst but not so much as a crumb of food.
Sometimes I traveled through woods. More oft I passed abandoned fields. While I saw birds aplenty heard them too—wood pigeons, cuckoos, thrushes—I wondered if England had no human souls. Would I find no life or food anywhere?
More than once I reminded myself of the times when my mother and I had gone without sustenance. If we could survive then—and we did—I could do so now.
During the afternoon of the following day, still going westerly and while coming off a rise, I saw ahead what looked to be a village situated in a dell. It was a cluster of cottages, and, taller than the rest, a church of stone. At first glance it seemed as if the hamlet contained fewer dwellings than my own Stromford.
Still, my heart began to race. Perhaps this was where God had led me, where I would gain my liberties, where people would treat me kindly. And where there would be food for me.
Yet as I drew close I began to sense something greatly amiss. There was no rising smoke, no people, sheep, or cows. No living thing appeared, not so much as a single cock, goose, dog, or pig. Nor were there smells, no dung, no manure. The fields I passed had long been unplowed.
As I came into the village proper, I saw that all lay in ruin. Roofs had collapsed. Walls had fallen in. Carts and wheels were broken. Tools lay scattered on the ground. The roof thatch that remained was worn to shreds, full of gaping holes. House daubing had crumbled and remained unpatched. Wattle had unsprung. In the middle of the hamlet I came upon a well whose surface water lay thick with clotted scum.
My skin crawled with trepidation. Something ghastly had occurred. I was put to mind of my nightmarish thought, that I had come to Hell.
But gradually, I began to grasp what it was I’d come upon: the remnants of a village destroyed by the Great Plague of some years back.
In Stromford there had been much talk of this devastating pestilence, “the Great Mortality,” as it was called. Our village had lost more than half its inhabitants, some by death, others by a desperate fleeing. It had caused my own father’s death.
The cause of this blight was well known: God had sent it as punishment for our sins. All one could do was pray to Jesus and run—and even then, there was no escape. As Father Quinel had always warned, God in His sweet mercy and unforgiving anger touches whom He wants. No soul can escape His wrath.
Here, not one person appeared to have remained alive. The profound stillness that embraced all was its own sad and lonely sermon.
Still, desperate to find some food—even a tiny morsel—I crept with care through what remained, fearful my steps might waken restless spirits. To protect myself, I gripped the cross of lead in my hand.
In search of food, I made myself enter one of the better structures, an empty cottage with half a roof. Some of its walls remained. In a collapsed corner sat a brown-boned skeleton. About its open ribs lay shreds of old cloth. Once fair hair dangled from its skinless skull. Its fleshless hands clutched a tiny cross.
I made the sign of the cross over my own hammering heart and retreated, then rushed through the village, wanting nothing more than to flee.
But as I was passing the broken church I heard a solitary singing voice:
“Ah, dear God, how can this he
That all things wear and waste away!”