It would be needless to narrate those disastrous occurrences, for which a parallel might be found in any slighter visitation of our gigantic calamity.  Does the reader wish to hear of the pest-houses, where death is the comforter—­of the mournful passage of the death-cart—­of the insensibility of the worthless, and the anguish of the loving heart—­of harrowing shrieks and silence dire—­of the variety of disease, desertion, famine, despair, and death?  There are many books which can feed the appetite craving for these things; let them turn to the accounts of Boccaccio, De Foe, and Browne.  The vast annihilation that has swallowed all things—­the voiceless solitude of the once busy earth—­the lonely state of singleness which hems me in, has deprived even such details of their stinging reality, and mellowing the lurid tints of past anguish with poetic hues, I am able to escape from the mosaic of circumstance, by perceiving and reflecting back the grouping and combined colouring of the past.

I had returned from London possessed by the idea, with the intimate feeling that it was my first duty to secure, as well as I was able, the well-being of my family, and then to return and take my post beside Adrian.  The events that immediately followed on my arrival at Windsor changed this view of things.  The plague was not in London alone, it was every where—­it came on us, as Ryland had said, like a thousand packs of wolves, howling through the winter night, gaunt and fierce.  When once disease was introduced into the rural districts, its effects appeared more horrible, more exigent, and more difficult to cure, than in towns.  There was a companionship in suffering there, and, the neighbours keeping constant watch on each other, and inspired by the active benevolence of Adrian, succour was afforded, and the path of destruction smoothed.  But in the country, among the scattered farm-houses, in lone cottages, in fields, and barns, tragedies were acted harrowing to the soul, unseen, unheard, unnoticed.  Medical aid was less easily procured, food was more difficult to obtain, and human beings, unwithheld by shame, for they were unbeheld of their fellows, ventured on deeds of greater wickedness, or gave way more readily to their abject fears.

Deeds of heroism also occurred, whose very mention swells the heart and brings tears into the eyes.  Such is human nature, that beauty and deformity are often closely linked.  In reading history we are chiefly struck by the generosity and self-devotion that follow close on the heels of crime, veiling with supernal flowers the stain of blood.  Such acts were not wanting to adorn the grim train that waited on the progress of the plague.