e. At one side of a deep, low-roofed vault,
the architecture of which was of great antiquity, and showed that it had
been a place of burial, was stretched a miserable pallet, and upon it,
covered by a single blanket, lay a wretch, whose groans and struggles
proclaimed the anguish he endured. A lamp was burning on the floor, and
threw a sickly light upon the agonized countenance of the sufferer. He
was a middle-aged man, with features naturally harsh, but which now,
contracted by pain, had assumed a revolting expression. An old crone,
who proved to be his mother, and a young man, who held him down in bed
by main force, tended him. He was rambling in a frightful manner; and as
his ravings turned upon the most loathly matters, it required some
firmness to listen to them.

At a little distance from him, upon a bench, sat a stout,
shrewd-looking, but benevolent little personage, somewhat between forty
and fifty. This was Doctor Hodges. He had a lancet in his hand, with
which he had just operated upon the sufferer, and he was in the act of
wiping it on a cloth. As Leonard entered the vault, the doctor observed
to the attendants of the sick man, "He will recover. The tumour has
discharged its venom. Keep him as warm as you can, and do not let him
leave his bed for two days. All depends upon that. I will send him
proper medicines and some blankets shortly. If he takes cold, it will be
fatal."

The young man promised to attend to the doctor's injunctions, and the
old woman mumbled her thanks.

"Where is Judith Malmayns?" asked Doctor Hodges: "I am surprised not to
see her. Is she afraid of the distemper?"

"Afraid of it!--not she," replied the old woman. "Since the plague has
raged so dreadfully, she has gone out as a nurse to the sick, and my
poor son has seen nothing of her."

Leonard then recollected that he had heard the woman, who called out of
the miser's house, addressed as Mother Malmayns by the coffin-maker, and
had no doubt that she was the sexton's wife. His entrance having been so
noiseless that it passed unnoticed, he now stepped forward, and,
addressing Doctor Hodges, acquainted him with his errand.

"What!" exclaimed the doctor, as soon as he concluded, "a son of Stephen
Bloundel, the worthy grocer of Wood-street, attacked by the plague! I
will go with you instantly, young man. I have a great regard for your
master--a very great regard. There is not a better man living. The poor
lad must be saved, if possib