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"Just drink this, and don't borrow trouble. They say sack is a sure specific against the plague." Mine host drained the bumper, and wiped his mouth, with another hollow groan. "If I thought that, sir, I'd not be sober from one week's end to t'other; but I know well enough I will be in a plague-pit in less than a week. O Lord! have mercy on us!" "Amen!" said Sir Norman, impatiently.
"This is a sad mode of burial for a Christian," observed Wingfield. "But it would not do to leave an infected body to rot in the fields, and spread the contagion." "Such a grave is better than the plague-pit," rejoined Leonard, recalling the frightful scenes he had witnessed there.
"I trust it will not," rejoined the old woman, shaking her head; "but when I hear the doleful bell at night when I catch a glimpse of the fatal cart or look towards yon dreadful place," and she pointed in the direction of the plague-pit, which lay only a few hundred yards to the west of her habitation "I am reminded that the scourge is not far off, and that it must needs reach me ere long."
He then proceeded to the lesser plague-pit, and kneeling beside the grave of Amabel, bedewed it with his tears. As he arose, with the intention of returning to Wood Street, he observed an extraordinary light in the sky a little to the left, evidently produced by the reflection of a great fire in that direction. On beholding this light, he said to himself, "Mr. Bloundel was right.
He remained for some time in the deepest affliction, and was at last roused by. a hand laid upon his shoulder, and, raising himself, beheld Thirlby. "I thought it must be you," said the new comer, in accents of the deepest commiseration. "I have been visiting yonder plague-pit for the same melancholy purpose as yourself, to mourn over my lost child.
For hot and narrow thoroughfares reeking with pestilential effluvia, resounding with frightful shrieks, or piteous cries, and bearing on every side marks of the destructive progress of the scourge for these terrible sights and sounds for the charnel horrors of the plague-pit the scarcely less revolting scenes at the pest-house the dismal bell announcing the dead-cart the doleful cries of the buriers for graves surfeited with corruption, and streets filled with the dying and the dead and, above all, for the ever-haunting expectation that a like fate might be his own, he had exchanged green hills, fresh breezes, spreading views, the song of the lark, and a thousand other delights, and assurances of health and contentment.
"Well," cried the stranger starting violently, "and was it not true?" "Only partly. She was carried away in the pest-cart sure enough, but she was not thrown into the plague-pit!" "And why?" "Because, when on reaching that horrible spot, she was found to be alive!" "Good Heaven! And what then?"
"Exactly! and the subject being a very interesting one, I listened to all you said." "Indeed! and what possible interest could the subject have for you, may I ask?" "A deeper one than you think!" said Sir Norman, with a slight tremor in his voice as he thought of the lady, "the watchman told you the lady you sought for had been carried away dead, and thrown into the plague-pit!"
I discern no symptoms of abatement of the distemper, but, on the contrary, an evident increase of malignity, and such is the opinion of all I have spoken with on the subject. Chowles told me he buried two hundred more yesterday than he had ever done before, and yet he did not carry a third of the dead to the plague-pit. He is a strange fellow that Chowles.
Overjoyed to be released, Blaize ran off as fast as his legs could carry him, and never stopped till he reached Moorgate. Meanwhile, Leonard had reached the place of meeting. As he stood by the rail surrounding the plague-pit, he thought of Mr.
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