The Shuttle

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1908. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVII. IN THE BALLROOM. Though Dunstan village was cut off, by its misfortune, from its usual intercourse with its neighbours, in some mystic manner villages even at twenty miles' distance learned all it did and suffered, feared or hoped. It did not hope greatly, the rustic habit of mind tending towards a discouraged outlook, and cherishing the drama of impending calamity. As far as Yangford and Marling inmates of cottages and farmhouses were inclined to think it probable that Dunstan would be "swep away," and rumours of spreading death and disaster were popular. Tread, the advanced blacksmith at Stornham, having heard in his by-gone, better days of the Great Plague of London, was greatly in demand as a narrator of illuminating anecdotes at The Clock Inn. Among the parties gathered at the large houses Mount Dunstan himself was much talked of. If he had been a popular man, he might have become a sort of hero; as he was not popular, he was merely a subject for discussion. The fever-stricken patients had been carried in carts to the Mount and given beds in the ballroom, which had been made into a temporary ward. Nurses and supplies had been sent for from London, and two energetic young doctors had taken the place of old Dr. Fenwick, who had been frightened and overworked into an attack of bronchitis which confined him to his bed. Where the money came from, which must be spent every day under such circumstances, it was difficult to say. To the simply conservative of mind, the idea of filling one's house with dirty East End hop pickers infected with typhoid seemed too radical. Surely he could have done something less extraordinary. Would everybody be expected to turn their houses into hospitals in case of village epidemics, now that he had established...