The summer had been unusually gorgeous.  Some had complained of the steaming heat, but others had pointed to the lush vegetation, which was profuse and luxuriant.  The early autumn was wet and cold, but people did not regard it, in contemplation of some proud rejoicing of the nation, which filled every newspaper and gave food to every tongue.  In Eccleston these rejoicings were greater than in most places; for, by the national triumph of arms, it was supposed that a new market for the staple manufacture of the place would be opened; and so the trade, which had for a year or two been languishing, would now revive with redoubled vigour.  Besides these legitimate causes of good spirits, there was the rank excitement of a coming election, in consequence of Mr. Donne having accepted a Government office, procured for him by one of his influential relations.  This time, the Cranworths roused themselves from their magnificent torpor of security in good season, and were going through a series of pompous and ponderous hospitalities, in order to bring back the Eccleston voters to their allegiance.

While the town was full of these subjects by turns—­now thinking and speaking of the great revival of trade—­now of the chances of the election, as yet some weeks distant—­now of the balls at Cranworth Court, in which Mr. Cranworth had danced with all the belles of the shopocracy of Eccleston—­there came creeping, creeping, in hidden, slimy courses, the terrible fever—­that fever which is never utterly banished from the sad haunts of vice and misery, but lives in such darkness, like a wild beast in the recesses of his den.  It had begun in the low Irish lodging-houses; but there it was so common it excited little attention.  The poor creatures died almost without the attendance of the unwarned medical men, who received their first notice of the spreading plague from the Roman Catholic priests.

Before the medical men of Eccleston had had time to meet together and consult, and compare the knowledge of the fever which they had severally gained, it had, like the blaze of a fire which had long smouldered, burst forth in many places at once—­not merely among the loose-living and vicious, but among the decently poor—­nay, even among the well-to-do and respectable.  And, to add to the horror, like all similar pestilences, its course was most rapid at first, and was fatal in the great majority of cases—­hopeless from the beginning.  There was a cry, and then a deep silence, and then rose the long wail of the survivors.

A portion of the Infirmary of the town was added to that already set apart for a fever-ward; the smitten were carried thither at once, whenever it was possible, in order to prevent the spread of infection; and on that lazar-house was concentrated all the medical skill and force of the place.