“On no account handle them whatever you do,” I said. “One bite from an infected flea and that could well be the death of you. Believe me, I know.”

  “They do say as it’s the foul air,” she said. “There’s orders posted abroad for the Watch to burn night fires at every street crossing—and all day long in the open yards. But Father says the London air’s always been as foul even when there was no plague.”

  “He’s right,” I insisted. “So do as I say, Bessie, and promise me you’ll touch no dead rats, then you and your babe will both live through it safely.”

  She smiled. “Me, I hate the ugly brutes. Hark ye, here comes Father now.”

  A middle-aged man with a bald crown to his head and sparse brown hair touched with gray, came shuffling out of the passage at the back of the counter and nodded to me. “We’ve not met before, I think, sir,” he said. “What is it ye seek?”

  1 lifted my knapsack onto the counter, unbuckled it and drew out the complete prism and the two broken pieces. “I want you to cut me an eight-faced crystal prism to these identical dimensions, Mr. Tavener,” I said. “Can you do it?”

  He took the whole crystal from me and held it up, twisting it this way and that as he squinted at it. “May I ask who fashioned this for ye, sir?”

  “I had it cut in Italy.”

  “ ’Tis fine workmanship. I’ve seen none better.” And with that he handed it back to me with a smile.

  “But you must keep it, Mr. Tavener,” I insisted. “It is to be your pattern. The dimensions are vital, I do assure you.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint ye, Doctor,” he said, “but seemingly that’s what I must do. Singlehandcd I’m so tardy in my work that it would be the best part of a three-month before I could even consider it. Why, I have grinding in hand upstairs for Master Hooke, due last month, that bids fair to keep me till the middle of next.”

  “Mr. Tavener,” I cried desperately, “I have not traveled all this way to find you, only to be denied! Will you tell me how long it would take to cut such a prism?”

  He lifted the rod again and turned it over speculatively between his fingers. “Cut and polish?” he inquired.

  “Of course.”

  “Two or three days, maybe. Depending on how fine ye wanted it.”

  “And what would you charge?”

  “A guinea a day for the skilled labor.”

  “I’ll pay you ten,” I said, and the words were no sooner out of my mouth than I realized what I had said.

  He peered up at me quizzically over the crystal. ‘Ten guineas?” he repeated slowly. “Ye’d pay me ten gold guinea pieces?”

  I nodded. “I will. Providing you’ll put the work in hand for me at once.”

  He looked down again at the prism and traced its beveled contours with his fingertips. I could see he was wondering what kind of a man I was to have brought him such a proposition. “D’ye mind telling me why the matter is so urgent, sir?”

  “You’d not believe me if I did, Mr. Tavener,” I said, “but I assure you it could well be a matter of life or death. Time is of the essence.”

  “Well, there again, sir,” he said, “I know not whether I even have such a blank to suit. Like all else good crystal’s hard to come by in these black days. But perhaps you’d care to step up into the workshop and see what there is.”

  “Then you will undertake it?”

  “If I have no satisfactory blank, sir, then no amount of willing on my part will make ye one,” he said. “So you’d best come up and see for yourself.”

  I followed him through the shop, up some dark stairs and into a long, low-beamed workroom which must surely have been cantilevered on to the back of the house. Windows ran around three sides and two of them looked out over the graveyard of the church next door. The early evening sunlight was slanting in through a dusty drapery of cobwebs. An antique wooden treadle lathe stood against one wall. Suspended above it was a rack of tools. Instead of a fireplace there was a charcoal oven-furnace and a glass-making crucible. The whole place was depressingly reminiscent of a Durer engraving of an alchemist’s glory hole, but while Mr. Tavener was routing in the depths of a cupboard I examined two lenses I found lying on a bench and discovered them to be of astonishingly high quality.

  Tavener emerged clasping a chunk of quartz which he brought across to the bench and laid before me. “That’s Tintagel pebble,” he said. “Would it do?”

  I picked up the crystal and held it to the light. As far as I could tell it was flawless. I handed it back to him and expelled my breath in a long sigh. “It will do perfectly, Mr. Tavener,” I said.

  At that very moment the clock in the church began to sound a chime and, without thinking, I pulled my watch from my fob pocket, intending to set it by the prevailing time. I had just clicked open the gold face-guard when I noticed that Tavener’s gaze was riveted on the instrument. I smiled. “You will not have seen a watch like this, I daresay, Mr. Tavener?” I detached the chain clip and held the instrument out to him.

  He took it from me and turned it round wonderingly in his fingers, rather as the guard at the Bridge Gatehouse had turned over the penny I had given him. Then he lifted it to his ear and a look of the most profound astonishment suffused his face, ft is, in truth, a fine timepiece, made by Jacques Simenon of Paris and given to me to mark my twenty-first anniversary by my dear Mother and Father. I took it back from him, opened the case with my thumbnail and showed him the jeweled precision movement within. “Why, sir,” he breathed, “that is a true miracle! God’s truth, never in my life did I dream to see such a thing.”

  “I warrant it is the only one of its kind in the world today,” I said.

  “That I can well believe, sir. I doubt the King himself hath such a treasure.”

  “Mr. Tavener,” I said slowly, “would you like to own that watch?”

  He looked at me as if I had gone clean out of my mind and said nothing at all.

  “I mean it,” I said. “So anxious am I to have the prism cut that I am prepared to give you my watch in exchange for it. It is worth far more than ten guineas. Make for me a perfect copy of that prism, put it into my hand, and I will put the watch into yours. See, here is my hand in pledge of it.”

  Tavener looked down at the watch ticking away merrily on the bench with the yellow sunlight winking from the jeweled balance. It almost seemed to have hypnotized him. “Well?” I said. “Isn’t it a fair bargain?”

  “Aye, sir,” he agreed at last. “I must suppose ye. best know what ye are about,” and with that he joined his palm to mine and we shook upon the contract.

  “And when can you start?” I asked him.

  “Tomorrow, God willing. But I shall have to ride to Edmonton first for pumice powder and rottenstone. I’m clean out of both of them.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “All day, most like. Tis ten mile there and no less back.” “And those things you must have?”

  “Aye. For cutting pebble. ’Tis not like your whoreson glass. The other grits I have enough of.”

  “It’s not for me to teach you your business, Mr. Tavener,” I said. “All I can do now is to wish you God speed.”

  “Believe me, I’ll not tarry, sir. As it is the lass won’t care to be left.”

  I picked up the watch and clipped it back on to its chain. “I am just newly arrived in London, Mr. Tavener,” I said, “and as yet have no lodgings. Could you perhaps recommend me to some inn close by?”

  He scratched his chin. “The Three Keys in Lower Wharf Street is a clean house,” he said. “It’s just down alongside Paul’s Steps. I daresay that would suit ye. The air is more wholesome by the water.”

  So I took my leave of him with my heart feeling a good deal lighter than it had for many hours. I soon found The Three Keys and prevailed upon the landlord to rent me an attic room overlooking the river, paying for one week’s rent and board in advance with the first of my two sovereigns. I told him that the coin was a Polish thaler —Henderson the numismatist once told me that this coin bore a superficial resemblance to our modern sovereign— and he accepted it cheerfully enough, no doubt on account of his having frequent dealings with sailors from foreign ports. I drank a mug of ale with him and ate an excellent mutton pasty while he regaled me with horrific stories of the ravages the “visitation” was wreaking upon the City. He also told me that the ships I had seen drawn up in midstream were filled with wealthy citizens who had embarked their wives and families and would permit no one else to set foot aboard, all their daily needs being supplied by boatmen who purchased food on shore, rowed out with it, and loaded it into baskets which were then hauled up on deck.

  Soon after this I retired to my room intending to take a short nap, but whether from the unaccustomed effect of the strong ale or by simple reaction to the day’s exertions, I fell deeply asleep and did not wake until the next morning, though I seem dimly to recall having my dreams invaded by the sound of a handbell being rung in the street below and the jarring clatter of iron-shod cart wheels upon cobblestones.

  Apart from a brief excursion this morning along the waterfront, during which I purchased for myself a less anachronistic hat with one of my three florins and a plain-fronted, linen bib shirt with another, I have spent the whole day closeted in my attic writing up this record of what must surely be one of the most extraordinary days ever spent by a nineteenth-century gentleman.

  August 28th

  To Tavener’s early, only to find the shop locked up. I waited for over half an hour hoping that at least his daughter would put in an appearance but saw nobody. I made my way around to the back of the premises and peered up at the workshop windows. The whole place seemed utterly deserted. The rest of the morning I spent wandering about the City in an agony of apprehension. Finally I returned to Carter Street, knocked on the door of the house adjoining the shop and inquired whether they knew anything of the man’s whereabouts. The woman told me that Tavener, accompanied by his daughter and her child, had set out early the previous morning in a small pony cart and had not been seen since. Telling myself they had been delayed at Edmonton and would surely return that afternoon, I wandered into the Cathedral and, despite my own anxiety, was deeply moved by the sight of hundreds of people all kneeling in silent prayer. I read a printed proclamation which I found nailed up in the Cathedral porch. It was signed by the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs and gave a series of orders to the citizens, some of which explained the odd noises I had heard—hand bells, horns blowing and the rest. Nothing more desperately ironical than the directions to kill all dogs and cats! —the one slender hope of keeping some of the rats out of the houses! Returned to Tavener’s three times more, then finally back here feeling thoroughly depressed.

  August 29th

  Spent a wretched night lying awake listening to the melancholy cries of the bellmen—“Bring out your de-a-a-d! Bring out your de-a-a-d!” Resolved to try to speak to the Mayor or the Sheriffs and attempt to persuade them to at least rescind the order for the destruction of dogs and cats. Heard the squeaking of mice—or rats!—behind the wainscot and broke out into a cold sweat of pure terror. Would I not be better advised to seek lodgings south of the river?

  (Later)

  Still no. sign or word of Tavener. Wrote him a note which I thrust under his door, urging him to contact me immediately on his return. Found another lens grinder in Cheapside but lacking the prisms which I had left with Tavener I could only give him a rough description of what I wanted. Since he had no suitable crystal anyway it was so much wasted effort. However, he told me that William Tavener was “a true man of his word” and that my business could not be in better hands. Consolation of a sort, I suppose, if only I could be sure that my business was in his hands!

  A thoroughly unnerving encounter in a street (Bread St.?) linking Cheapside with Watling Street. Saw a man I took for a drunkard staggering toward me. Just before he reached me he pitched over and fell full length on the cobbles. I hurried up to him—he was lying on his face— turned him over and saw to my horror that he had all the signs of the Plague, gross swellings at the sides of his neck and dark blotches under his skin from internal bleeding. There was a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth though this may well have been a result of his fall. He was still breathing—a throaty, rasping sound—and as I bent over him he vomited up a black, evil-smelling bile, shuddered once, violently, and lay still. I looked up and saw that the narrow street which had been busy enough when I entered it was now competely deserted. All round me I heard the staccato sounds of doors and window shutters being clapped to. I felt for the poor devil’s pulse and found nothing. I left him lying there in the street and hurried away.

  When I had recovered something of my composure I made my way straight to the Mansion House and asked if I could speak to one of the Sheriffs or some other person of authority upon a matter of great urgency. Finally I was granted an audience with a Mr. Robinson, the Private Secretary to Sir Charles Doe. He listened patiently while I poured out my reasons for at least rescinding the order for the destruction of cats and dogs. Having heard me out he thanked me politely and then told me that I was mistaken since it had been proved quite conclusively that the Plague was transmitted by the “evil miasma” which was inhaled by these very animals and then breathed out upon their unsuspecting victims! Besides, he added with a charming smile, did I really suppose that such a tiny creature as a flea could carry all the monstrous weight of such appalling infection? Furthermore, if extra proof were needed, could any man deny that fleas had been skipping around London for years before the outbreak of the present calamity? “Bubonic plague,” I said, “is carried by the black rat in the form of an invisible bacterium, bacillus pestis. When the rats die of the infection their fleas seek out other hosts and by sucking their blood transmit the infection to them. Would you be so good as to record that fact and see that it is conveyed to Sir John Lawrence? If the authorities act promptly thousands of innocent lives may yet be saved.” Mr. Robinson smiled and nodded and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “I will see that your message is conveyed to His Lordship, Doctor Pensley,” he said. “And now I really must beg ye to excuse me for I have a great deal of most pressing business to attend to.” And that was that.

  August 30th It is now three whole days since I spoke to Tavener and still nothing. Last night, for the first time, I found myself the victim of a most dreadful depression which I could not shake off. All day long a heavy pall of cloud has hung over the City and my eyes are still red and inflamed from the sulphurous smoke of those infernal bonfires they light to sweeten the air! This afternoon I was assailed by an ungovernable panic-fear that my Machine had been discovered and removed. I ran down to the waterside, paid a boatman sixpence to ferry me over to Southwark and made my way back across the fields to Herne Hill. My relief at discovering my Machine still standing exactly where” I had left it—and, apparently, untouched—quite overwhelmed me. I sank down in the grass beside it and wept like a child. While I was making my return a violent thunderstorm broke and by the time I eventually got back to the inn I was soaked to the skin. The landlord persuaded me to drink a stiff tot of hot Hollands punch which, though it may not be the universal specific he claims, certainly seems to have done something to lift my leaden spirits.

  August 31st

  Tavener is returned! The serving maid who attends on me in my room brought up my clothes which had been drying overnight in the kitchen and told me that Tavener’s daughter had brought word to the innkeeper. My spirits soared like a skylark. I was out of bed, had dressed, and was on my way to Carter Street within minutes of hearing the news. Bessie came to the shop door herself and told me that her father was already at work upstairs on my commission. Not wishing to delay him still further I asked her to tell me what had happened. Whereupon she invited me through into their parlor and told me how they had been stopped at Stanford by a barrier across the road, similar in all respects to that which I had encountered at Camberwell. Unable to persuade the villagers to let them through they had been forced to make a detour as far westward as Palmer’s Green before they could circle back by a maze of by-lanes toward Edmonton. They had spent that night under a haystack and, on resuming their journey next morning, had reached Edmonton around noon only to find, to their dismay, that there a similar barricade had been erected. Her father had spent most of that afternoon parlaying with the constables and had eventually prevailed upon them to allow him through. But their troubles were still not over. The dealer who normally supplied him with materials had shut up his works for the duration of “the visitation” and gone to lodge with his sister in Newmarket! Having got so far the resourceful Tavener was not to be denied. He forced an entry into the store shed, helped himself to whatever he wanted, left some money to pay for it together with a note of explanation and, next morning, the three of them were on their way back to London.

  All had gone well until, while they were descending Stanford Hill, the axle of their hired pony-cart broke. Tavener was somehow able to effect a temporary repair which enabled them to crawl back to Wood Green where they had spent the rest of that day finding a wheelwright and persuading him to replace the broken axle. This meant still further delay and by the time the job was finished it was too late to continue to London. They spent that night in Wood Green and had set out the following day, arriving back at Carter Lane at about the same time as I was on my way back from Herne Hill.

  I have recounted here briefly what Bessie Tavener spent an animated hour describing, painting a remarkably vivid word picture of the pathetic bands of fugitives from the City whom they had encountered roaming the forest around Woodford—“living like gypsies, poor souls, with nary a scantling of provender to keep their bones from rattling.” I was moved to ask her whether she regretted having to return to London but she said there were already many cases of plague in the outlying districts and if she was fated to die of it she would rather draw her last breath in her own house than lost among strangers. I repeated my stern warning about the rats and extracted a solemn promise from her that she would keep well clear of anyplace where fleas might be caught. She gave me her word readily enough,, but I suspect it was more to humor me than because she believed me.