visit,-none so secret that the quick-sighted pestilence did not discover,-none could fly that it did not overtake.

bos It was as if Heaven had repented the making of mankind, and was shovelling them all into the sepulchre. Justice was forgotten, and her courts deserted. The terrified jailers fled from the felons that were in fetters;

the innocent and "ereued them

guilty

selves together, and kept within their prisons for safety; the grass grew in the marketplaces; the cattle went moaning up and down the fields, wondering what had become of their keepers; the rooks and the ravens came into the towns, and built their nests in the mute belfries; silence was universal, save when some infected wretch was seen clamouring at a window.ow emo bilg

For a time all commerce was in coffins and shrouds; but even that ended. Shrift there was none-churches and chapels were open, but neither priest nor penitent entered ;

all went to the charnel-house. The sexton and the physician were cast into the same deep and wide grave; the testator and his heirs and executors were hurled from the same cart into the same hole together. Fires became extinguished, as if its element too had expired; the seams of the sailorless ships yawned to the sun. Though doors were open, and coffers unwatched, there was no theft;-all offences ceased, and no crime but the universal woe of the pestilence was heard of among men. The wells overflowed, and the conduits ran to waste;-the dogs banded themselves together, having lost their mas ters, and ran howling over all the land; horses perished of famine in their stalls ;-old friends but looked at one another when they met, keeping themselves far aloof;-creditors claimed no debts, and courtiers performed their promises;-little children went wandering up and down, and numbers were seen dead in all corners. Nor was it only in England

ires

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sun-source of life. ?.

The good Lady de Crosby died, th tle Beatrice died, and Sir Amias, follo a distance by Ralph Hanslap, went mu ing every where in quest of the infectio he could not die. J*659 «99mli, a

He confessed aloud, to every one h

the wrongs he had done to the wido the orphan, but no one heeded his tal all were flying, they knew not whither the pestilence.

He ran to the house of Adonijah th to make restitution. The door was and he rushed in; but a swarm of h flies came buzzing into his face, and he the sound of swine grovelling in the da within

Hanslap standing in the street, he beckoned

him towards him, but was refused.

He

darted back in his frenzy into the house; and the cries of the swine, driven from their devouring, were heard, and two that were black came raging out.

At that epoch, for a short time there was a silence, and every person in the street for a moment stood still; and London was as dumb as a church-yard. Again the sound of a bell was heard; for it was that sound, so long unheard, which arrested the fugitive multitude, and caused their silence. At the third toll an universal shout arose, as when a herald proclaims the tidings of a great battle. won, and then there was a second silence.

The people fell on their knees, and with anthems of thankfulness rejoiced in the dismal. sound of that tolling death-bell; for it was a signal of the plague being so abated that men might again mourn for friends, and hallow their remains with the solemnities of burial.

Sir Amias de Crosby had heard the tolling and shouting, and came out from his dreadful search. Thank Heaven," he said, "none of them are here-there are but three bodies within, Hanslap,—old Shebak, a woman, and another man, whom, I think, was the son of Adonijah; but, perhaps, the rest are all dead."

-“ O ́sir, would you be pleasured to lend me a helping hand for Christianity ?" cried an aged matron, at that moment, to the squire from the door of a neighbouring house, as she was attempting to drag out a large chest.

"What have you there? Let it alone," cried Ralph Hanslap, who recognised in her the lady of Sir Gabriel de Glowr, with whom, before the pestilence, he had formed some acquaintance; and he added, "Tis a sin

to think of sucli a thing at this time. Where is Sir Gabriel ?”

He's won awa after a sore struggle," re

plied the lady.