return," said Abraham Ligartwood.

But in the fall of the year the White Death came to Dour. They say that
it came from the blasted town of Kirk Oswald, where the plague had been
all the summer. The men of the landward parishes set a watch on all that
came out of the accursed streets. But in the night-time men with laden
horses ran the blockade, for the prices to be obtained within were like
those in a besieged city.

Some said that it was the farmer of Portmark who had done this thing
once too often. At least it is sure that it was to his house that the
Death first came in the parish of Dour. At the sound of the shrill
crying, of which they every one knew the meaning, men dropped their
tools in the field and fled to the hills. It was like the Day of
Judgment. The household servants disappeared. Hired men and
field-workers dispersed like the wave from a stone in a pool, carrying
infection with them. Men fell over at their own doors with the rattle in
their throats, and there lay, none daring to touch them. In Kirk Oswald
town the grass grew in the vennels and along the High Street. In Dour
the horses starved in the stables, the cattle in the byres.

Then came Abraham Ligartwood out of the manse of Dour. He went down to
the farm towns and into the village huts and lifted the dead. He
harnessed the horse in the cart, and swathed the body in sheets. He dug
the graves, and laid the corpse in the kindly soil. He nursed the sick.
He organised help everywhere. He went from house to stricken house with
the high assured words of a messenger fresh from God.

He let out the horses to the pasture. He milked the kine, that bellowed
after him with the plague of their milk. He had thought and hands for