Here, however, no one seemed to be stirring; and no
sound broke the silence but the distant rumble of the death-cart,
and the ringing of the driver's bell. There were lights in some
of the houses, but many of them were dark and deserted, and
nearly every one bore the red cross of the plague.
It was a gloomy scene and hour, and Sir Norman's heart turned
sick within him as he noticed tho ruin and devastation the
pestilence had everywhere wrought. And he remembered, with a
shudder, the prediction of Lilly, the astrologer, that the paved
streets of London would be like green fields, and the living be
no longer able to bury the dead. Long before this, he had grown
hardened and accustomed to death from its very frequence; but
now, as he looked round him, he almost resolved to ride on and
return no more to London till the plague should have left it.
But then came the thought of his unknown lady-love, and with it
the reflection that he was on his way to find her; and, rousing
himself from his melancholy reverie, he rode on at a brisker
pace, heroically resolved to brave the plague or any other
emergency, for her sake. Full of this laudable and lover-like
resolution, he had got on about half a mile further, when he was
suddenly checked in his rapid career by an exciting, but in no
way surprising, little incident.
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