I saw the eye of Idris wander from me to her children, with an anxious appeal to my judgment.  Adrian was absorbed in meditation.  For myself, I own that Ryland’s words rang in my ears; all the world was infected;—­in what uncontaminated seclusion could I save my beloved treasures, until the shadow of death had passed from over the earth?  We sunk into silence:  a silence that drank in the doleful accounts and prognostications of our guest.  We had receded from the crowd; and ascending the steps of the terrace, sought the Castle.  Our change of cheer struck those nearest to us; and, by means of Ryland’s servants, the report soon spread that he had fled from the plague in London.  The sprightly parties broke up—­they assembled in whispering groups.  The spirit of gaiety was eclipsed; the music ceased; the young people left their occupations and gathered together.  The lightness of heart which had dressed them in masquerade habits, had decorated their tents, and assembled them in fantastic groups, appeared a sin against, and a provocative to, the awful destiny that had laid its palsying hand upon hope and life.  The merriment of the hour was an unholy mockery of the sorrows of man.  The foreigners whom we had among us, who had fled from the plague in their own country, now saw their last asylum invaded; and, fear making them garrulous, they described to eager listeners the miseries they had beheld in cities visited by the calamity, and gave fearful accounts of the insidious and irremediable nature of the disease.

We had entered the Castle.  Idris stood at a window that over-looked the park; her maternal eyes sought her own children among the young crowd.  An Italian lad had got an audience about him, and with animated gestures was describing some scene of horror.  Alfred stood immoveable before him, his whole attention absorbed.  Little Evelyn had endeavoured to draw Clara away to play with him; but the Italian’s tale arrested her, she crept near, her lustrous eyes fixed on the speaker.  Either watching the crowd in the park, or occupied by painful reflection, we were all silent; Ryland stood by himself in an embrasure of the window; Adrian paced the hall, revolving some new and overpowering idea—­suddenly he stopped and said:  “I have long expected this; could we in reason expect that this island should be exempt from the universal visitation?  The evil is come home to us, and we must not shrink from our fate.  What are your plans, my Lord Protector, for the benefit of our country?”

“For heaven’s love!  Windsor,” cried Ryland, “do not mock me with that title.  Death and disease level all men.  I neither pretend to protect nor govern an hospital—­such will England quickly become.”

“Do you then intend, now in time of peril, to recede from your duties?”

“Duties! speak rationally, my Lord!—­when I am a plague-spotted corpse, where will my duties be?  Every man for himself! the devil take the protectorship, say I, if it expose me to danger!”