Rewards and Fairies - Penn State University

Rewards and Fairies
‘When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut ‘“Oh, sir,” she says, “are you a physician? We have none.”
the roads against ‘em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan, ‘“Then, good people,” said I, “I must e’en justify myself to
where such as would purchase victual from outside may lay money you by my works.”
and the paper of their wants, and depart. Those that would sell ‘“Look—look ye,” stammers Jack, “I took you all this time
come later—what will a man not do for gain?—snatch the money for a crazy Roundhead preacher.” He laughs, and she, and
forth, and leave in exchange such goods as their conscience reck- then I—all three together in the rain are overtook by an unons
fair value. I saw a silver groat in the water, and the man’s list reasonable gust or clap of laughter, which none the less eased
of what he would buy was rain-pulped in his wet hand. us. We call it in medicine the Hysterical Passion. So I went
‘“My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!” says Jack of a sudden, home with ‘em.’
and makes uphill—I with him.
‘Why did you not go on to your cousin at Great Wigsell,
‘A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that Nick?’ Puck suggested. ‘’tis barely seven mile up the road.’
the village is stricken with the plague, and that for our lives’ ‘But the plague was here,’ Mr Culpeper answered, and
sake we must avoid it.
pointed up the hill. ‘What else could I have done?’
‘“Sweetheart!” says Jack. “Must I avoid thee?” and she leaps ‘What were the parson’s children called?’ said Una.
at him and says the babes are safe. She was his wife.
‘Elizabeth, Alison, Stephen, and Charles—a babe. I scarce
‘When he had thanked God, even to tears, he tells me this saw them at first, for I separated to live with their father in a
was not the welcome he had intended, and presses me to flee cart-lodge. The mother we put—forced—into the house with
the place while I was clean.
her babes. She had done enough.
‘“Nay! The Lord do so to me and more also if I desert thee ‘And now, good people, give me leave to be particular in
now,” I said. “These affairs are, under God’s leave, in some this case. The plague was worst on the north side of the street,
fashion my strength.”
for lack, as I showed ‘em, of sunshine; which, proceeding from
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