anged along the
nave and aisles at short distances from each other; and, before night,
the interior of the structure presented the complete appearance of an
hospital. Acting under the directions of Doctor Hodges, Leonard Holt
lent his assistance in arranging the pallets, in covering them with
bedding and blankets, and in executing any other service required of
him. A sufficient number of chirurgeons and nurses were then sent for,
and such was the expedition used, that on that very night most of the
pallets were occupied. Thus the cathedral underwent another afflicting
change. A blight had come over it, mildewing its holy walls, and
tainting and polluting its altars. Its aisles, once trodden by grave and
reverend ecclesiastics, and subsequently haunted by rufflers, bullies,
and other worthless characters, were now filled with miserable wretches,
stricken with a loathsome and fatal distemper. Its chapels and shrines
formerly adorned with rich sculptures and costly ornaments, but stripped
of them at times when they were looked upon as idolatrous and profane,
were now occupied by nurses, chirurgeons, and their attendants; while
every niche and corner was filled with surgical implements, phials,
drugs, poultices, foul rags, and linen.

In less than a week after it had been converted into a pest-house, the
cathedral was crowded to overflowing. Upwards of three hundred pallets
were set up in the nave, in the aisles, in the transepts, and in the
choir, and even in the chapels. But these proving insufficient, many
poor wretches who were brought thither were placed on the cold flags,
and protected only by a single blanket. At night the scene was really
terrific. The imperfect light borne by the attendants fell on the
couches, and revealed the livid countenances of their occupants; while
the vaulted roof rang with shrieks and groans so horrible and
heart-piercing as to be scarcely endured, except by those whose nerves
were firmly strung, or had become blunted by their constant recurrence.
At such times, too, some unhappy creature, frenzied by agony, would
burst from his couch, and rend the air with his cries, until overtaken
and overpowered by his attendants. On one occasion, it happened that a
poor wretch, who had been thus caught, broke loose a second time, and
darting through a door leading to the stone staircase in the northern
transept gained the ambulatory, and being closely followed, to escape
his pursuers, sprang through o