made a bolt for the
street. Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the fire-place, mistaking
it for the door, yet their escape was at length happily effected--and
half after twelve o'clock found our heroes ripe for mischief, and
running for life down a dark alley in the direction of St. Andrew's
Stair, hotly pursued by the landlady of the "Jolly Tar."

At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for many years
before and after, all England, but more especially the metropolis,
resounded with the fearful cry of "Plague!" The city was in a great
measure depopulated--and in those horrible regions, in the vicinity of
the Thames, where amid the dark, narrow, and filthy lanes and alleys,
the Demon of Disease was supposed to have had his nativity, Awe, Terror,
and Superstition were alone to be found stalking abroad.

By authority of the king such districts were placed under ban, and all
persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon their dismal
solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch, nor the huge barriers
erected at the entrances of the streets, nor the prospect of that
loathsome death which, with almost absolute certainty, overwhelmed
the wretch whom no peril could deter from the adventure, prevented the
unfurnished and untenanted dwellings from being stripped, by the hand
of nightly rapine, of every article, such as iron, brass, or lead-work,
which could in any manner be turned to a profitable account.

Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening of the
barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars, had proved but
slender protection to those rich stores of wines and liquors which, in
consideration of the risk and trouble of removal, many of the numerous
dealers having shops in the neighbourhood had consented to trust, during
the period of exile, to so insufficient a security.

But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who attributed
these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-spirits, plague-goblins,
and fever-demons, were the popular imps of mischief; and tales so
blood-chilling were hourly told, that the whole mass of forbidden
buildings was, at length, enveloped in terror as in a shroud, and
the plunderer himself was often scared away by the horrors his own
depreciations had created; leaving the entire vast circuit of prohibited
district to gloom, silence, pestilence, and death.

It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned, and which
indic