Though half mankind of the scourge should die,
My coffins will sell--so what care I?
_Drink the Plague! Drink the Plague!_

Loud acclamations followed the song, and the doctor, who was filled with
disgust and astonishment, opened the door. He absolutely recoiled at the
scene presented to his gaze. In the midst of a large room, the sides of
which were crowded with coffins, piled to the very ceiling, sat about a
dozen personages, with pipes in their mouths, and flasks and glasses
before them. Their seats were coffins, and their table was a coffin set
upon a bier. Perched on a pyramid of coffins, gradually diminishing in
size as the pile approached its apex, Chowles was waving a glass in one
hand, and a bottle in the other, when the doctor made his appearance.

A more hideous personage cannot be imagined than the coffin-maker. He
was clothed in a suit of rusty black, which made his skeleton limbs look
yet more lean and cadaverous. His head was perfectly bald, and its
yellow skin, divested of any artificial covering, glistened like
polished ivory. His throat was long and scraggy, and supported a head
unrivalled for ugliness. His nose had been broken in his youth, and was
almost compressed flat with his face. His few remaining teeth were
yellow and discoloured with large gaps between them. His eyes were
bright, and set in deep cavernous recesses, and, now that he was more
than half-intoxicated, gleamed with unnatural lustre. The friends by
whom he was surrounded were congenial spirits,--searchers, watchmen,
buriers, apothecaries, and other wretches, who, like himself, rejoiced
in the pestilence, because it was a source of profit to them.

At one corner of the room, with a part-emptied glass before her, and
several articles in her lap, which she hastily pocketed on the entrance
of the doctor, sat the plague-nurse, Mother Malmayns; and Leonard
thought her, if possible, more villainous-looking than her companions.
She was a rough, raw-boned woman, with sandy hair and light brows, a
sallow, freckled complexion, a nose with wide nostrils, and a large,
thick-lipped mouth. She had, moreover, a look of mingled cunning and
ferocity inexpressibly revolting.

Sharply rebuking Chowles, who, in springing from his lofty seat, upset
several of the topmost coffins, the doctor gave him some directions,
and, turning to the nurse, informed her of her husband's condition, and
ordered her to go to him immediately Mother Malmayns arose, a