A more hideous personage cannot be imagined than the coffin-maker.  He was clothed in a suit of rusty black, which made his skeleton limbs look yet more lean and cadaverous.  His head was perfectly bald, and its yellow skin, divested of any artificial covering, glistened like polished ivory.  His throat was long and scraggy, and supported a head unrivalled for ugliness.  His nose had been broken in his youth, and was almost compressed flat with his face.  His few remaining teeth were yellow and discoloured with large gaps between them.  His eyes were bright, and set in deep cavernous recesses, and, now that he was more than half-intoxicated, gleamed with unnatural lustre.  The friends by whom he was surrounded were congenial spirits,—­searchers, watchmen, buriers, apothecaries, and other wretches, who, like himself, rejoiced in the pestilence, because it was a source of profit to them.

At one corner of the room, with a part-emptied glass before her, and several articles in her lap, which she hastily pocketed on the entrance of the doctor, sat the plague-nurse, Mother Malmayns; and Leonard thought her, if possible, more villainous-looking than her companions.  She was a rough, raw-boned woman, with sandy hair and light brows, a sallow, freckled complexion, a nose with wide nostrils, and a large, thick-lipped mouth.  She had, moreover, a look of mingled cunning and ferocity inexpressibly revolting.

Sharply rebuking Chowles, who, in springing from his lofty seat, upset several of the topmost coffins, the doctor gave him some directions, and, turning to the nurse, informed her of her husband’s condition, and ordered her to go to him immediately Mother Malmayns arose, and glancing significantly at the coffin-maker, took her departure.

Repeating his injunctions to Chowles in a severe tone, the doctor followed; and seeing her take the way towards Saint Paul’s, proceeded at a brisk pace along Paternoster-row with the apprentice.  In a few minutes they reached Wood-street, and knocking at the door, were admitted by Blaize.

“Heaven be praised, you are come at last!” exclaimed the porter.  “Our master began to think something had happened to you.”

“It is all my fault,” returned Doctor Hodges; “but how is the young man?”

“Better, much better, as I understand,” replied Blaize; “but I have not seen him.”

“Come, that’s well,” rejoined Hodges.  “Lead me to his room.”

“Leonard will show you the way,” returned the porter, holding back.

Glancing angrily at Blaize, the apprentice conducted the doctor to the inner room, where they found the grocer, with the Bible on his knee, watching by the bedside of his son.  He was delighted with their appearance, but looked inquisitively at his apprentice for some explanation of his long absence.  This Hodges immediately gave; and, having examined the sufferer, he relieved the anxious father by declaring, that, with due care, he had little doubt of his son’s recovery.