lf,
Who think they can better the Judge Himself.

"Sinner--whatever thy sins may be,
Theirs is the sentence--go from Me!"

THE BLACK REAPER

TAKEN FROM THE Q---- REGISTER OF LOCAL EVENTS, AS COMPILED FROM AUTHENTIC
NARRATIVES

I

Now I am to tell you of a thing that befell in the year 1665 of the Great
Plague, when the hearts of certain amongst men, grown callous in
wickedness upon that rebound from an inhuman austerity, were opened to
the vision of a terror that moved and spoke not in the silent places of
the fields. Forasmuch as, however, in the recovery from delirium a
patient may marvel over the incredulity of neighbours who refuse to give
credence to the presentments that have been _ipso facto_ to him, so, the
nation being sound again, and its constitution hale, I expect little but
a laugh for my piety in relating of the following incident; which,
nevertheless, is as essential true as that he who shall look through the
knot-hole in the plank of a coffin shall acquire the evil eye.

For, indeed, in those days of a wild fear and confusion, when every
condition that maketh for reason was set wandering by a devious path, and
all men sitting as in a theatre of death looked to see the curtain rise
upon God knows what horrors, it was vouchsafed to many to witness sights
and sounds beyond the compass of Nature, and that as if the devil and his
minions had profited by the anarchy to slip unobserved into the world.
And I know that this is so, for all the insolence of a recovered
scepticism; and, as to the unseen, we are like one that traverseth the
dark with a lanthorn, himself the skipper of a little moving blot of
light, but a positive mark for any secret foe without the circumference
of its radiance.

Be that as it may, and whether it was our particular ill-fortune, or, as
some asserted, our particular wickedness, that made of our village an
inviting back-door of entrance to the Prince of Darkness, I know not; but
so it is that disease and contagion are ever inclined to penetrate by way
of flaws or humours where the veil of the flesh is already perforated,
as a kite circleth round its quarry, looking for the weak place to
strike: and, without doubt, in that land of corruption we were a very
foul blot indeed.

How this came about it were idle to speculate; yet no man shall have the
hardihood to affirm that it was otherwise. Nor do I seek to extenuate
myself, who was in truth no better than my neighbo