The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-02-15 00:00:00

TUE FEVER IN TILE VILLAGE.

From the clever story. " The Atonement of Learn Dun-
das," in the current number of CornAin Magazi.. we take
the following very powerfully-written chapter on the
effects of a 'Green Yule " in n English village•—
The frost broke suddenly, awl was succeeded by damp-
close, unseasonable weather, continuing up to Christmas,
and giving the " green yule," which the proverb says
" makes • fat churchyard.' That proverb was justified
sadly enough at North Aston ; for typhus set in among the
low-lying cottages; and, 11. in olden tunes when jail-fever
struck the lawyer at the bar ant the judge on the bench,
in stern protest against the foulness they foster!..sl, so
now, the sins of the bottom to assist reacted on their own
claws, and the fever entered other dwellings beside those
of the peasants. . . .

Two of the gentry were atruck down by it—tuck (.or.
tight and the new occupant of Lionnet that Mr. Grp)°,
who never went to Church, awl who wan asaurned in con-
sequence to have neither • soul to be saved by tiod nor a
heart to be touched by man. Anil these were Aunt the two
who, according to the theory of the good or evil of a mates
deals returned to him in kind, hail the meet reason to
expect exemption. For Alick had spent his strength in
visiting the sick as • faithful pastor should, and Mr. Bryce
had taken them material help with royal abundance.
Both together they had to pay the price of principle—
always an expensive luxury, awl never personally al saw
a card to play an the game of life as seltishnesa. For virtue
has not only to be cotented with its own reward, a, we
constantly hear, but had to accept punishment for its good
deeds ; vice for the moat part carrying off the Idea ribanda
and the gold medals, while poor virtue, shivering in the
corner, gets titted with the fool's cap or is haled into the
market plum to he posited in the pillory.
As wassail= now in North Anton.

The rector, who never went into an infected cottage, nor
suffered • parishioner to stand between the wind and his
security, kept his portly strength and handsome flesh
intact ; but Alick nearly lost his life as the practical com-
ment on his faithful ministry ; and Mr. Gryce, who, if he
did not carry spiritual manna wherewith to feed hungry
souls, did take quinine and port wine, money and comfort-
ing substances generally, for half-starved aching bodies,
was also laid hold of by that inexorable law which knows
nothing about immunities from established consequences
on account of the good motives of the actors.
This would have been called heresy by the North
.I,tonian families who professed to trust themselves to
superior care, but none the Imo used Condy's Fluid as a
means whereby the work of Providence might be rendered
easier, nor disdainwl precipitate flight from the protection
in which they all said, dolefully, they believed. But there
is a wide different% between saying and doing, and men
who are shocked by words of open unbelief hind faithless
deeds both natural and in reason. . . .

-In ort-hat seedpr trust in Providence
which is part of the garniture of English respectability, a
great fear fell on the North Aston gentry when these two
of their own circle went attacked. The fever, while it
confined itself to the ill-drained, picturesque little cottages
below, was lamentable enough ; but not more than lament-
able on Um broad platform of a common Inommity • and
those who had lost nothing told those who had lost all
that they must bear the cross with patience, seeing that It
WWI the divine will that it should be so. Now, when the
tiery epidemic had come upon the gentry face to face in
their homes, it was a monster front which they must flee
without delay ; for no one knew whose house was safe, nor
for how long his own might rentain disiufected.
Mrs. Harrowby and her daughters went off to Chelten-
ham two days after Alick was announced as "down," to
find there the security of living which had failed them
here. They were people of the highest respectability—
people who are the very pitch and marrow of English
social virtue; but they had not been touched with the
divine fire of self-sacrifice for humanity, and they had no
desire to both the groans of the elfin:fed if they thereby
ran the risk of having to gnash to their own teeth. They
could do no good at home. As Mrs. liarrowity said, asune
propounding • self-evident paradox, how could they go
and see the sick, or help to nurse ploughmen and their
children They would only catch the fever theusulves,
and so spread it still further. And every no knows
what • wicked thing that is to do ! Cook had orders to
supply • certain amount of soup and wine when asked for,
which was more to the purpoie than any mere senti-
mental kindness of no use to the one and highly dangerous
to the other ; and has Edgar had a great deal to do in the
house and stables, it VMS is well, she said, with the air of
one undergoing something disagreeable fur high principles.
to get out of his way, and leave him to his bricks and
mortar undisturbed. Gentlemen, she said. OA the clamp
holding all together, do not like to be interfered with in
their own domain.
The fever in the bottom was such an admirable lever of
womanly good sense!
So they went, and enjoyed themselves at (!heltenhant
as mach as It was In the lfarrowby nature to do; and
even Josephine's kind heart consoled itself in the
Pump Itootu, while their miserable tenants at home I
sickened and died as comfortably as circumstances would
allow.
The Falrhairits, too, found themselves obliged to pay a
long-promised visit to London now on the instant, and
swept out of the place with even more than their charac-
tontine promptitude: and the rector would have given up
his charge to a substitute if he could. But floating
clerical labour was just then scarce, and he could not find
any one to take his place in the Valley of the Shadow,
though he offered the liberal terms which are dictated by
fear.
Its sent away his wife and daughter, but he himself
was bound to his post, and had to make the best of the
had bit of cord that held hiin. Ile used to say with his
grand manner of martyrdom that, whatever ho suffered,
he must pull the labouring oar to the end, and attend to
the sheen committed to his charge. And he said it so
often that he got at last to believe in his own devotion.
All the same that labouring oar of his pulled nothing
heavier than a cock-boat, and in waters no stormier
than a duck-pond ; and when his sheep had the
rot, he was too delicate about the hands to meddle with
them. Ile preached to the living and he buried the dead,
surrounded -by all the protective appliances that „dance
has devised or money can supply. When the epidemic
was over, he, too, talked of Providence and his trust
therein, acid how he had been mercifully spared as his
reward.