"I will not fail," replied the young man.
"One of the terrible judgments which I predicted would befall this devoted city has come to pass," cried Solomon Eagle. "Another yet remains—the judgment by fire—and if its surviving inhabitants repent not, of which there is as yet no sign, it will assuredly follow."
"Heaven avert it!" groaned the other, turning away.
Proceeding along Cheapside, he entered Wood-street, and took his way towards the grocer's dwelling. When at a little distance from it, he paused, and some minutes elapsed before he could muster strength to go forward. Here, as elsewhere, there were abundant indications of the havoc occasioned by the fell disease. Not far from the grocer's shop, and in the middle of the street, lay the body of a man, with the face turned upwards, while crouching in an angle of the wall sat a young woman watching it. As the young man drew nearer, he recognised in the dead man the principal of the Brotherhood of Saint Michael, and in the poor mourner one of his profligate female associates. "What has become of your unhappy companions?" he demanded of the woman.
"The last of them lies there," she rejoined mournfully. "All the rest died long ago. My lover was true to his vow; and instead of deploring their fate, lived with me and three other women in mirth and revelry till yesterday, when the three women died, and he fell sick. He did not, however, give in, but continued carousing until an hour before his death."
Too much shocked to make any reply, the young man proceeded towards the hutch. Beneath a doorway, at a little distance from it, sat a watchman with a halberd on his shoulder, guarding the house; but it was evident he would be of little further use. His face was covered with his hands, and his groans proclaimed that he himself was attacked by the pestilence. Entering the hutch, the young man pulled the cord of the bell, and the summons was soon after answered by the grocer, who appeared at the window. "What, Leonard Holt!" he exclaimed, in surprise, on seeing the young man—"is it you?—what ails you?—you look frightfully ill."
"I have been attacked a second time by the plague," replied the apprentice, "and am only just recovered from it."
"What of my child?" cried the grocer eagerly—"what of her?"
"Alas! alas!" exclaimed the apprentice.
"Do not keep me in suspense," rejoined the grocer. "Is she dead?"