r profligacy. But presently the reports coming thicker, with
confirmation of the terror and panic that was enlarging on all sides, we
must take measures for our safety; though into June and July, when the
pestilence was raging, none infected had come our way, and that from our
remote and isolated position. Yet it needs but fear for the crown to that
wickedness that is self-indulgence; and forasmuch as this fear fattens
like a toadstool on the decomposition it springs from, it grew with us to
the proportions that we were set to kill or destroy any that should
approach us from the stricken districts.

And then suddenly there appeared in our midst _he_ that was appointed to
be our scourge and our cautery.

Whence he came, or how, no man of us could say. Only one day we were a
community of roysterers and scoffers, impious and abominable, and the
next he was amongst us smiting and thundering.

Some would have it that he was an old collegiate of our Vicar's, but at
last one of those wandering Dissenters that found never as now the times
opportune to their teachings--a theory to which our minister's treatment
of the stranger gave colour. For from the moment of his appearance he
took the reins of government, as it were, appropriating the pulpit and
launching his bolts therefrom, with the full consent and encouragement of
the other. There were those, again, who were resolved that his commission
was from a high place, whither news of our infamy had reached, and that
we had best give him a respectful hearing, lest we should run a chance of
having our hearing stopped altogether. A few were convinced he was no man
at all, but rather a fiend sent to thresh us with the scourge of our own
contriving, that we might be tender, like steak, for the cooking; and yet
other few regarded him with terror, as an actual figure or embodiment of
the distemper.

But, generally, after the first surprise, the feeling of resentment at
his intrusion woke and gained ground, and we were much put about that he
should have thus assumed the pastorship without invitation, quartering
with our Vicar; who kept himself aloof and was little seen, and seeking
to drive us by terror, and amazement, and a great menace of retribution.
For, in truth, this was not the method to which we were wont, and it both
angered and disturbed us.

This feeling would have enlarged the sooner, perhaps, were it not for a
certain restraining influence possessed of the new-comer, whi