In all London proper there were only two pest houses used at this time, one on some fields beyond Old Street, and the other in Westminster; but as the virulence of the distemper increased, and the suburbs became so terribly infected, and such numbers of persons fleeing this way and that would fall stricken by the wayside, it became necessary to find places of some sort where they could be received, and the authorities began to take possession of empty houses—­generally farmsteads standing in a convenient but isolated position—­and to use them for this melancholy purpose.  It could not be expected that even the most charitable would receive plague-stricken wayfarers into their own families, nor would such a thing be right.  Yet they could not remain by the wayside to die and infect the air.  So they were removed by the bearers appointed to that gruesome work to these smaller pest houses, and only too often from thence to the pit in the course of a few hours.

“How pretty it all looks!” said Benjamin, as they approached the place.  “See, Joseph, those are the great elm trees where the rooks build, and which I used to climb.  When they cut the hay, I came often and rolled about in it and played with the boys from the farm.  To think that they should all be dead and gone!  Alack! what strange times these be!  It seems sometimes as though it were all a dream!”

“I would it were!” said Joseph, sobered by the thought of their near approach to the habitation of death.  “Ben, wouldst thou rather turn back and see no more?  We have at least seen the outside of a pest house.  Shall that suffice us?”

“Nay, if we have come so far, let us go further,” answered Benjamin.  “We have seen naught but the tiled roof and the green garden.  Come this way.  There is a little gate by which we may gain entrance to a side door.  Perchance they will turn us back if we seek to enter at the front.”

The farm house looked peaceful enough nestling beneath its sheltering row of tall elms, in the midst of its wild garden, now a mass of autumnal bloom.  But as they neared the house the boys heard dismal sounds issuing thence—­the groans of sufferers beneath the hands of the physicians, who were often driven to use what seemed cruel measures to cause the tumours to break—­the only chance of recovery for the patient—­the shriek of some maddened or delirious patient, or the unintelligible murmur and babble from a multitude of sick.  Moreover, they inhaled the pungent fumes of the burning drugs and vinegar which alone made it possible to breathe the atmosphere tainted by so much pestilential sickness.  The boys held their own bottles of vinegar to their noses as they stole towards the house, feeling a mingling of strong repulsion and strong curiosity as they approached the dismal stronghold of disease.