“I cannot tell,” she answered.  “They say that there be many walking about amongst us daily in the streets who carry death to all in their breath and in their touch, and yet they know it not themselves, and none know it till they fall as yon poor man did, and die ofttimes in a few minutes or hours.  If such be so, who knows when he is safe?  May the Lord have mercy upon us all!  There be seven lying dead in this street today, and though folks say they died of other fevers and distempers, who can tell?  They bribe the nurses and the leeches to return them dead of smaller ailments, but I verily believe the pestilence is stalking through our very midst even now.”

She shut down the window with a groan, and Joseph pursued his way with somewhat modified feelings, half elated at being in the thick of so much that was terrible and awesome, and yet beginning to understand somewhat of the horror that was possessing the minds of all.  He found himself walking in the middle of the street, and avoiding too close contact with the passersby; indeed all seemed disposed to give strangers a wide berth just now, so that it was not difficult to avoid contact.

Yet crowds were to be seen, too, at many open spaces.  Sometimes a fervid preacher would be declaiming to a pale-faced group on the subject of God’s righteous judgments upon a wicked and licentious city.  Sometimes a wizened old woman or a juggling charlatan would be seen selling all sorts of charms and potions as specifics against the plague.  Joseph pressing near in curiosity to one of these vendors, found him doing a brisk trade in dried toads, which he vowed would preserve the wearer from all infection.  Another had packets of dried herbs to which he gave terribly long names, and which he declared acted as an antidote to the poison.  Another had small leaflets on which directions were given for applying a certain ointment to the plague spots, which at once cured them as by magic.  The leaflets were given away, but the ointment had to be bought.  Those, however, who once read what the paper said, seldom went away without a box of the precious specific.

Joseph would have liked one himself, but had no money, and was further restrained by a sense of conviction that his father would say it was all nonsense and quackery.

Church bells were ringing, and many were tolling—­tolling for the dead, and ringing the living into the churches, where special prayers were being offered and many excellent discourses preached, to which crowds of people listened with bated breath.  Joseph crept into one church on his way for a few minutes, but was too restless to listen long, and soon came forth again.

He was now near to Lad Lane, and hastening his steps lest he might be further delayed, came quickly upon the back premises of the carpenter’s shop, where the sound of hammer and chisel and saw made quite a clamour in the quiet air.