AND THE MAN. 141

 

For weeks the plague hovered, with its
black wings, over that devoted city—and
during the whole time, this stranger to all
the inhabitants passed from house to house,
supporting a dying head here, giving drink
to such as were almost mad with thirst
there, and bearing forth in his arms those
for whom there was any hope of life. But
when “the pestilence that walketh in
darkness and wasteth at noonday” had left
the city, he was no where to be found.

 

_For years the castle of De Montfort was
without a lord. Its knightly owner had
departed, though to what far country no
one knew. At last he returned—not on
mailed charger, with corslet, casque, and
spear-—a boastful knight, with hands crim-
soned by his brother’s blood,—nor as a
pious devotee from his cloister; but, as a
man, from the city where he had done good
deeds amid the dying and the dead. He
came to take possesion of his stately castle