'That?' said Dan and Una, and stared, and stared, and stared.
Mr Culpeper made impatient noises in his throat and went on.
'I am at these pains to be particular, good people, because I
would have you follow, so far as you may, the operations of my
mind. That plague which I told you I had handled outside Wallingford
in Oxfordshire was of a watery nature, conformable to
the brookish riverine country it bred in, and curable, as I have
said, by drenching in water. This plague of ours here, for all that it
flourished along watercourses - every soul at both Mills died of it, -
could not be so handled. Which brought me to a stand. Ahem!'
'And your sick people in the meantime?'Puck demanded.
'We persuaded them on the north side of the street to lie out in
Hitheram's field. Where the plague had taken one, or at most
two, in a house, folk would not shift for fear of thieves in their
absence. They cast away their lives to die among their goods.'
'Human nature,' said Puck. 'I've seen it time and again. How
did your sick do in the fields?'
'They died not near so thick as those that kept within doors,
and even then they died more out of distraction and melancholy
than plague.
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