“I know it,” I replied, “and I am going to see in what condition the poor fellow is.”

A murmur of surprise and horror ran through the assembly.  I continued:—­ “This poor wretch is deserted, dying, succourless; in these unhappy times, God knows how soon any or all of us may be in like want.  I am going to do, as I would be done by.”

“But you will never be able to return to the Castle—­Lady Idris—­his children—­” in confused speech were the words that struck my ear.

“Do you not know, my friends,” I said, “that the Earl himself, now Lord Protector, visits daily, not only those probably infected by this disease, but the hospitals and pest houses, going near, and even touching the sick? yet he was never in better health.  You labour under an entire mistake as to the nature of the plague; but do not fear, I do not ask any of you to accompany me, nor to believe me, until I return safe and sound from my patient.”

So I left them, and hurried on.  I soon arrived at the hut:  the door was ajar.  I entered, and one glance assured me that its former inhabitant was no more—­he lay on a heap of straw, cold and stiff; while a pernicious effluvia filled the room, and various stains and marks served to shew the virulence of the disorder.

I had never before beheld one killed by pestilence.  While every mind was full of dismay at its effects, a craving for excitement had led us to peruse De Foe’s account, and the masterly delineations of the author of Arthur Mervyn.  The pictures drawn in these books were so vivid, that we seemed to have experienced the results depicted by them.  But cold were the sensations excited by words, burning though they were, and describing the death and misery of thousands, compared to what I felt in looking on the corpse of this unhappy stranger.  This indeed was the plague.  I raised his rigid limbs, I marked the distortion of his face, and the stony eyes lost to perception.  As I was thus occupied, chill horror congealed my blood, making my flesh quiver and my hair to stand on end.  Half insanely I spoke to the dead.  So the plague killed you, I muttered.  How came this?  Was the coming painful?  You look as if the enemy had tortured, before he murdered you.  And now I leapt up precipitately, and escaped from the hut, before nature could revoke her laws, and inorganic words be breathed in answer from the lips of the departed.

On returning through the lane, I saw at a distance the same assemblage of persons which I had left.  They hurried away, as soon as they saw me; my agitated mien added to their fear of coming near one who had entered within the verge of contagion.