THE GREAT FOIRMILE DAY. 281 



Striking down in preference, the .sliiiiing objects of 

 public consideration and regard. I was among those 

 who felt the winnowing of his wings as he flitted past 

 my couch in quest of nobler trophies. 



All those who were not obliged to remain witliin the 

 doomed precincts of the city, fled to places afar off"; 

 while such as mere necessity required to abide the pes- 

 tilence, resorted to the most ingenious devices to escape 

 its visitation. Those who were overlooked by the De- 

 stroyer in his wratli, were near being starved, as few 

 country people dared bring marketing into the town, and 

 those who did so, only ventured within interdicted limits 

 at certain hours of the day, and right hastily did they 

 retreat to their more salubrious abodes. Amid the 

 general desolation, the incidents of woe were strangely 

 mingled with those that cheated Death, momentarily, of 

 his horrors. 



It were a scene that might have provoked the atten- 

 tion of Atropos herself, and made her pause awhile in her 

 terrible vocation, to smile upon the ludicrous means that 

 terror invented to thwart the purposes of Destiny. The 

 emaciated figures of the convalescent citizen, strangely 

 contrasted with the stalwart frame of the hardy yeoman, 

 whilst the cadaverous aspect of the former added to the 

 grotesqueness of the besmeared faces of the latter. 



The farmer, moved either by compassion or love of 

 gain to visit the town, as he penetrated the city as far 

 as the market-house, wouhl use amulets and bags of 



