easily procured, food was more difficult to obtain, and human beings,

unwithheld by shame, for they were unbeheld of their fellows, ventured on

deeds of greater wickedness, or gave way more readily to their abject

fears.

Deeds of heroism also occurred, whose very mention swells the heart and

brings tears into the eyes. Such is human nature, that beauty and deformity

are often closely linked. In reading history we are chiefly struck by the

generosity and self-devotion that follow close on the heels of crime,

veiling with supernal flowers the stain of blood. Such acts were not

wanting to adorn the grim train that waited on the progress of the plague.

The inhabitants of Berkshire and Bucks had been long aware that the plague

was in London, in Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, York, in short, in all

the more populous towns of England. They were not however the less

astonished and dismayed when it appeared among themselves. They were

impatient and angry in the midst of terror. They would do something to

throw off the clinging evil, and, while in action, they fancied that a

remedy was applied. The inhabitants of the smaller towns left their houses,

pitched tents in the fields, wandering separate from each other careless of

hunger or the sky's inclemency, while they imagined that they avoided the

death-dealing disease. The farmers and cottagers, on the contrary, struck

with the fear of solitude, and madly desirous of medical assistance,

flocked into the towns.

But winter was coming, and with winter, hope. In August, the plague had

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The Last Man