fireside with a mug of ale at her elbow.
Mark Hansel was a very respectable man,
and always paid his way; and, although
he had never read Adam Smith on the
Wealth of Nations, for the conclusive reason
that that work was not then written nor its
author born, he conducted himself as well as
if he had; and increased and multiplied.

Nevertheless, he could not prevent the
Plague from entering his house; which vexed
him a great deal, as he had taken vast pains to
keep it out, and he was naturally piqued at
the failure of his plans. Mark was a widower,
with no children; and his household
consisted of himself, one or two of his clerks,
and 'prentices, his maid-servant, and a few
lodgers in the upper stories: for Mark's house
was large, and silk-mercers in those days
were not the fine gentlemen they are now,
and did not think themselves above taking
a staid, decent person into their dwellings
at a certain rate per week. Now, when the
Plague first of all threatened the city, Mark
did what was very common at that time — he
made it a condition with those who dwelt
there that if they staid at all, they must
provide themselves with every requisite, and be
content to remain without stirring a foot out
of doors until the pest should have abated.
As they offered no objection to these terms,
the house was solemnly closed and barred (as
if the Plague cared for locks and bolts! ) and
the windows were shut close, and business
was suspended, and there was a strange, dull,
twilight, funeral look in all the rooms, and
the rue and wormwood and other disinfecting
plants, lying about at every turn, were
anything but cheerful in their suggestions. It
was bad enough in the day-time, but at night
old Mark would lie awake in his bed, listening
to the stagnant silence, and fancying that
he heard in it the stealthy, creeping, footsteps
of the Enemy going to and fro upon his
errands. And he was not far wrong in his
guess; for one night the said Enemy paused
before Mark's door, and passed through it,
bolts and all, and went creeping, creeping
up the staircase, with his ghostly, silent
steps — so silent that not a soul heard him,
though his breath was thick and clammy
on the walls — and entered one of the upper
rooms, and with a strong gripe upon the
throat, seized him who lay there, and left
him dead and livid by the dawn.

Old Mark was greatly astonished at this
when he came to find it out in the morning;
for he had no idea that the Plague could
possibly enter a house that was barricaded.
However, he got the body away as quickly
as he could, and, as an additional precaution,
had all the shutters closed over all the
windows; and then, thinking himself infallibly
secure, sat down once more in his voluntary
idleness, and amused himself with looking
over his account-books, and calculating
how much he was worth. But the great
Enemy came again silently in the night, and
smote another victim. Then, another and
another, until not one soul beside Mark
himself was left in the house ; and, as the
body of the last victim was carried forth
one evening and thrown into the dead-cart,
he felt more solitary than ever he had felt in
his life.

I have said that the last body was taken
forth one evening. Mark saw it put into
the cart; and, after having barred up the
door, returned to his room, and sat down,
thinking. He was puzzling his brains how
to manage for companionship, and had
almost made up his mind to ask the only
nephew he had to come and live with him
(although he knew him to be a young rake
and a spendthrift), when it occurred to him
that, as shutting up the house had so signally
failed — and he could not but admit that it
had failed — he might as well run the risk of
breathing a little of the open air, and seeing
at the same time whether he could light
upon a neighbour. It was the month of
September; and, the disease being at its
height, the government had set a watch upon
all infected houses, with strict orders that no
one should be allowed to issue forth. Mark,
however, knew that the watchman over his
house had been comfortably drunk at an
adjacent tavern for the last hour; so he
opened the outer door, and stood gazing up
and down the street. What he saw did not
in the least tend to raise his spirits; for,
instead of a gay, loud thoroughfare, with
horses and vehicles, and cavaliers and ladies,
there was a silent desert. No lights glimmered
in the dull, black casement—no faces looked
forth upon the empty road below—no sound
of life stirred within the languid air. A
thick crop of grass had sprung up between
the stones of the road: and the lightest
blade scarcely fluttered in the heavy
stagnation. Looking towards Old St. Paul's.
Hansel saw the rich and various outline of
that beautiful structure — then within a
twelvemonth of its utter destruction — almost
massed by the leaden gloom of the evening
sky, against which it was scarcely relieved;
and, turning away his gaze, he beheld at very
small intervals the dreadful red cross
smeared with lurid distinctness on the
shutters of several of his neighbours. Mark
began to feel that, after all, he had better
remain indoors; and, would have departed
instantly, but that his ear caught the now
unusual sound of a carriage rattling over the
pavement. It came from the direction
of Cornhill, and made an ominous rumble in
the hush.

For the mere sake of a little companionship,
however brief, Hansel determined to
wait until the carriage had passed. He therefore
stood watching its approach. It was
drawn with surprising quickness by four
black horses, which pranced and scattered the
foam from their nostrils in a grand and royal
manner; and at every step their hoofs beat