from the plague in London. The sprightly parties broke up--they assembled

in whispering groups. The spirit of gaiety was eclipsed; the music ceased;

the young people left their occupations and gathered together. The

lightness of heart which had dressed them in masquerade habits, had

decorated their tents, and assembled them in fantastic groups, appeared a

sin against, and a provocative to, the awful destiny that had laid its

palsying hand upon hope and life. The merriment of the hour was an unholy

mockery of the sorrows of man. The foreigners whom we had among us, who had

fled from the plague in their own country, now saw their last asylum

invaded; and, fear making them garrulous, they described to eager listeners

the miseries they had beheld in cities visited by the calamity, and gave

fearful accounts of the insidious and irremediable nature of the disease.

We had entered the Castle. Idris stood at a window that over-looked the

park; her maternal eyes sought her own children among the young crowd. An

Italian lad had got an audience about him, and with animated gestures was

describing some scene of horror. Alfred stood immoveable before him, his

whole attention absorbed. Little Evelyn had endeavoured to draw Clara away

to play with him; but the Italian's tale arrested her, she crept near, her

lustrous eyes fixed on the speaker. Either watching the crowd in the park,

or occupied by painful reflection, we were all silent; Ryland stood by

himself in an embrasure of the window; Adrian paced the hall, revolving

some new and overpowering idea--suddenly he stopped and said: "I have

long expected this; could we in reason expect that this island should be

exempt from the universal visitation? The evil is come home to us, and we

must not shrink from our fate. What are your plans, my Lord Protector, for

320

The Last Man