Mr. Bloundel hesitated, but his humanity overcame his apprehension, and murmuring a prayer that he might be preserved from infection, he followed his conductor into the house.  Prepared as he was for a dreadful spectacle, the reality far exceeded his anticipations.  Along both sides of a large room, occupying nearly the whole of the ground-floor, were rows of pallets, on which were laid the sick, many of whom were tied down to their couches.  Almost all seemed in a hopeless state, and the cadaverous hue of their countenances proclaimed that death was not far off.  Though the doors and windows were open, and the room was filled with vapours and exhalations, arising from pans of coal and plates of hot iron, on which drugs were burning, nothing could remove the putrid, and pestilential smell that pervaded the chamber.  The thick vapour settled on the panes of the windows, and on the roof, and fell to the ground in heavy drops.  Marching quickly past each bed, the grocer noted the features of its unfortunate occupant; but though there were many young men, Leonard was not among the number.  His conductor then led him to an upper room, where he found the chirurgeons dressing the sores of their patients, most of whom uttered loud shrieks while under their hands.  Here an incident occurred which deeply affected the grocer.  A poor young woman, who had been brought to the pest-house with her child on the previous evening, had just expired, and the infant, unable to obtain its customary nourishment, uttered the most piteous cries.  It was instantly removed by a nurse and proper food given it; but Mr. Bloundel was informed that the plague-tokens had already appeared, and that it would not probably live over the night.  “I have no doubt,” said the young chirurgeon, “it will be buried with its mother.”  And so it happened.

The grocer turned away to hide his emotion, and endeavoured through his blinded gaze to discover Leonard, but, as will be anticipated, without success.  Stunned by the cries and groans that pierced his ears, and almost stifled by the pestilential effluvia, he rushed out of the house, and gladly accepted a glass of sack offered him by his conductor, which removed the dreadful nausea that affected him.

“I now remember that the two last persons brought here were taken to the barn,” observed the chirurgeon; “I will go with you thither, if you think proper.”

The grocer assented, and the chirurgeon crossed the yard, and opened the door of the barn, on the floor of which upwards of twenty beds were laid.  Passing between them, Mr. Bloundel narrowly scrutinized every countenance; but, to his great relief, recognised no one.  One couch alone remained to be examined.  The poor sufferer within it had drawn the coverings over his face, and when they were removed he was found quite dead!  He was a young man; and the agony he had endured in the last struggle was shown by his collapsed frame and distorted features.  It was not, however, Leonard; and, so far satisfied, though greatly shocked, Mr. Bloundel hurried out.