the comforter--of the mournful passage of the death-cart--of the

insensibility of the worthless, and the anguish of the loving heart--of

harrowing shrieks and silence dire--of the variety of disease, desertion,

famine, despair, and death? There are many books which can feed the

appetite craving for these things; let them turn to the accounts of

Boccaccio, De Foe, and Browne. The vast annihilation that has swallowed all

things--the voiceless solitude of the once busy earth--the lonely state

of singleness which hems me in, has deprived even such details of their

stinging reality, and mellowing the lurid tints of past anguish with poetic

hues, I am able to escape from the mosaic of circumstance, by perceiving

and reflecting back the grouping and combined colouring of the past.

I had returned from London possessed by the idea, with the intimate feeling

that it was my first duty to secure, as well as I was able, the well-being

of my family, and then to return and take my post beside Adrian. The events

that immediately followed on my arrival at Windsor changed this view of

things. The plague was not in London alone, it was every where--it came

on us, as Ryland had said, like a thousand packs of wolves, howling through

the winter night, gaunt and fierce. When once disease was introduced into

the rural districts, its effects appeared more horrible, more exigent, and

more difficult to cure, than in towns. There was a companionship in

suffering there, and, the neighbours keeping constant watch on each other,

and inspired by the active benevolence of Adrian, succour was afforded, and

the path of destruction smoothed. But in the country, among the scattered

farm-houses, in lone cottages, in fields, and barns, tragedies were acted

harrowing to the soul, unseen, unheard, unnoticed. Medical aid was less

352

The Last Man