He said
it would be one Hebden, a parishioner, and till then a man of good
life; and he accused himself bitterly for an unfaithful shepherd,
that had left his flock to follow princes. But I saw it was the
plague, and not the beginnings of it neither. They had set out the
plague-stone, and the man's head lay on it.'
'What's a plague-stone?' Dan whispered.
'When the plague is so hot in a village that the neighbours shut
the roads against 'em, people set a hollowed stone, pot, or pan,
where such as would purchase victual from outside may lay
money and the paper of their wants, and depart. Those that
would sell come later - what will a man not do for gain? - snatch
the money forth, and leave in exchange such goods as their
conscience reckons fair value. I saw a silver groat in the water, and
the man's list of what he would buy was rain-pulped in his wet hand.
'"My wife! Oh, my wife and babes!" says Jack of a sudden,
and makes uphill - I with him.
'A woman peers out from behind a barn, crying out that the
village is stricken with the plague, and that for our lives' sake we
must avoid it.
'"Sweetheart!" says Jack. "Must I avoid thee?" and she leaps at
him and says the babes are safe.
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