“The sickness in the town!  Alackaday!  Woe betide us all!  It will be next within our very walls.  Holy St. Catherine protect us!  May all the Saints have mercy upon us!  In Guildford! why, that is scarce five short miles away!  And all the men and the wenches are flying as for dear life, though if what men say be true there be few enough places left to fly to!  Why, Joan, why answerest thou not?  I might as well speak to a block as to thee.  Dost understand, girl, that the Black Death is at our very doors —­ that all our people are flying from us?  And yet thou sittest there with thy book, as though this were a time for idle fooling.  I am fair distraught —­ thy father and brother away and all!  Canst thou not say something?  Hast thou no feeling for thy mother?  Here am I nigh distracted by fear and woe, and thou carriest about a face as calm as if this deadly scourge were but idle rumour.”

Joan laid down her book, came across to her mother, and put her strong hand caressingly upon her shoulder.  Poor, weak, timid Lady Vavasour had never been famed for strength of mind in any of the circumstances of life, and it was perhaps not wonderful that this scare, reaching her ears in her husband’s absence, should drive her nearly frantic with terror.

For many days reports of a most disquieting nature had been pouring in.  Persons who came to Woodcrych on business or pleasure spoke of nothing but the approach of the Black Death.  Some affected to make light of it, protested that far too much was being made of the statements of ignorant and terrified people, and asserted boldly that it would not attack the well-fed and prosperous classes; whilst others declared that the whole country would speedily be depopulated, and whispered gruesome tales of those scenes of death and horror which were shortly to become so common.  Then the inhabitants of isolated houses like Woodcrych received visits from travelling peddlers and mountebanks of all sorts, many disguised in Oriental garb, who brought with them terrible stories of the spread of the distemper, at the same time offering for sale certain herbs and simples which they declared to be never-failing remedies in case any person were attacked by the disease; or else they besought the credulous to purchase amulets or charms, or in some cases alleged relics blessed by the Pope, which if always worn upon the person would effectually prevent the onset of the malady.  After listening greedily (as the servants in those houses always loved to do) to any story of ghastly horror which these impostors chose to tell them, they were thankful to buy at almost any price some antidote against the fell disease; and even Lady Vavasour had made many purchases for herself and her daughter of quack medicines and talismans or relics.