ch
neighboured him with darkness and mystery. For he was above the common
tall, and ever appeared in public with a slouched hat, that concealed all
the upper part of his face and showed little otherwise but the dense
black beard that dropped upon his breast like a shadow.

Now with August came a fresh burst of panic, how the desolation increased
and the land was overrun with swarms of infected persons seeking an
asylum from the city; and our anger rose high against the stranger, who
yet dwelt with us and encouraged the distemper of our minds by furious
denunciations of our guilt.

Thus far, for all the corruption of our hearts, we had maintained the
practice of church-going, thinking, maybe, poor fools! to hoodwink the
Almighty with a show of reverence; but now, as by a common consent, we
neglected the observances and loitered of a Sabbath in the fields, and
thither at the last the strange man pursued us and ended the matter.

For so it fell that at the time of the harvest's ripening a goodish body
of us males was gathered one Sunday for coolness about the neighbourhood
of the dripping well, whose waters were a tradition, for they had long
gone dry. This well was situate in a sort of cave or deep scoop at the
foot of a cliff of limestone, to which the cultivated ground that led up
to it fell somewhat. High above, the cliff broke away into a wide stretch
of pasture land, but the face of the rock itself was all patched with
bramble and little starved birch-trees clutching for foothold; and in
like manner the excavation beneath was half-stifled and gloomed over with
undergrowth, so that it looked a place very dismal and uninviting, save
in the ardour of the dog-days.

Within, where had been the basin, was a great shattered hole going down
to unknown depths; and this no man had thought to explore, for a mystery
held about the spot that was doubtless the foster-child of ignorance.

But to the front of the well and of the cliff stretched a noble field of
corn, and this field was of an uncommon shape, being, roughly, a vast
circle and a little one joined by a neck and in suggestion not unlike an
hour-glass; and into the crop thereof, which was of goodly weight and
condition, were the first sickles to be put on the morrow.

Now as we stood or lay around, idly discussing of the news, and
congratulating ourselves that we were featly quit of our incubus, to us
along the meadow path, his shadow jumping on the corn, came the ve