I was now in Holborn, and passed by a public house filled with uproarious companions, whose songs, laughter, and shouts were more sorrowful than the pale looks and silence of the mourner.  Such an one was near, hovering round this house.  The sorry plight of her dress displayed her poverty, she was ghastly pale, and continued approaching, first the window and then the door of the house, as if fearful, yet longing to enter.  A sudden burst of song and merriment seemed to sting her to the heart; she murmured, “Can he have the heart?” and then mustering her courage, she stepped within the threshold.  The landlady met her in the passage; the poor creature asked, “Is my husband here?  Can I see George?”

“See him,” cried the woman, “yes, if you go to him; last night he was taken with the plague, and we sent him to the hospital.”

The unfortunate inquirer staggered against a wall, a faint cry escaped her —­“O! were you cruel enough,” she exclaimed, “to send him there?”

The landlady meanwhile hurried away; but a more compassionate bar-maid gave her a detailed account, the sum of which was, that her husband had been taken ill, after a night of riot, and sent by his boon companions with all expedition to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.  I had watched this scene, for there was a gentleness about the poor woman that interested me; she now tottered away from the door, walking as well as she could down Holborn Hill; but her strength soon failed her; she leaned against a wall, and her head sunk on her bosom, while her pallid cheek became still more white.  I went up to her and offered my services.  She hardly looked up—­“You can do me no good,” she replied; “I must go to the hospital; if I do not die before I get there.”

There were still a few hackney-coaches accustomed to stand about the streets, more truly from habit than for use.  I put her in one of these, and entered with her that I might secure her entrance into the hospital.  Our way was short, and she said little; except interrupted ejaculations of reproach that he had left her, exclamations on the unkindness of some of his friends, and hope that she would find him alive.  There was a simple, natural earnestness about her that interested me in her fate, especially when she assured me that her husband was the best of men,—­had been so, till want of business during these unhappy times had thrown him into bad company.  “He could not bear to come home,” she said, “only to see our children die.  A man cannot have the patience a mother has, with her own flesh and blood.”

We were set down at St. Bartholomew’s, and entered the wretched precincts of the house of disease.  The poor creature clung closer to me, as she saw with what heartless haste they bore the dead from the wards, and took them into a room, whose half-opened door displayed a number of corpses, horrible to behold by one unaccustomed to such scenes.  We were directed to the ward where her husband had been first taken, and still was, the nurse said, if alive.  My companion looked eagerly from one bed to the other, till at the end of the ward she espied, on a wretched bed, a squalid, haggard creature, writhing under the torture of disease.  She rushed towards him, she embraced him, blessing God for his preservation.