drunk night by night. Ah, should the pestilence reach some amongst
them, what would be their terrible doom! I cannot bear even to
think of it! Yet that is too like to be the end of my wretched boy,
my poor, unhappy Frederick!"



CHAPTER V. THE PLOT AND ITS PUNISHMENT.


Strange as it may appear, the awful nature of the calamity which
had overtaken the great city had by no means the subduing influence
upon the spirits of the lawless young roisterers of the streets
that might well have been expected. No doubt there were some
amongst these who were sobered by the misfortunes of their fellows,
and by the danger in which every person in the town now stood; but
it seemed as if the very imminence of the peril and the fearful
spread of the contagion exercised upon others a hardening
influence, and they became even more lawless and dissolute than
before. "Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die," appeared to be
their motto, and they lived up to it only too well.

So whilst the churches were thronged with multitudes of pious or
terrified persons, assembled to pray to God for mercy, and to
listen to words of godly counsel or admonition; whilst the city
authorities were doing everything in their power to check the
course of the frightful contagion, and send needful relief to the
sufferers, and many devoted men and women were adventuring their
lives daily for the sake of others, the taverns were still filled
day by day and night by night with idle and dissolute young men,