"Have no fear," replied Thirlby; "she has promised me not to molest him further."
"You appear to have a strange influence over her, then," observed Leonard. "May I ask how you have attained it?"
"No matter," replied the other. "It must suffice that I am willing to exercise it in your behalf."
"And you are not disposed to tell me the nature of the interest you feel in Nizza Macascree?" pursued Leonard.
"Not as yet," replied Thirlby, with a look and tone calculated to put a stop to further inquiries.
Passing through Saint Austin's Gate, they approached Watling-street, at the corner of which stood the house where Doctor Hodges had taken up his temporary abode, that he might visit the sick in the cathedral with greater convenience, and be more readily summoned whenever his attendance might be required. Thirlby's knock at the door was answered, to Leonard's great satisfaction, by the old porter, who was equally delighted to see him.
It did not escape Leonard that the porter treated the stranger with great respect, and he inferred from this that he was a person of some consideration, as indeed his deportment bespoke him. The old man informed them that his master had been summoned on a case of urgency early in the morning, and had not yet returned, neither was he aware whither he was gone. He promised, however, to acquaint him with Blaize's condition immediately on his return—"and I need not assure you," he added to Leonard, "that he will instantly go to him." Thirlby then inquired of the porter whether Mike Macascree, the blind piper, was still at Dame Lucas's cottage, in Finsbury Fields, and was answered in the affirmative by the old man, who added, however, in a voice of much emotion, that the good dame herself was no more.
"She died about a fortnight ago of the plague," he said, "and is buried where she desired to be, beneath an old apple-tree in her garden."
"Alas!" exclaimed Leonard, brushing away a tear, "her own foreboding is too truly realised."
"I am about to visit the old piper," observed Thirlby to the apprentice. "Will you go with me?"