have," replied Leonard; "but she declined giving an answer till to-day."
"We will have it, then, at once," cried Bloundel "Come with me to her."
So saying, he led the way to the inner room, where they found Amabel and her mother. At the sight of Leonard, the former instantly cast down her eyes.
"Amabel," said her father, in a tone of greater severity than he had ever before used towards her, "all that has passed is known to me. I shall take another and more fitting opportunity to speak to you on your ill-advised conduct. I am come for a different purpose. You have given Leonard Holt a promise (I need not tell you of what nature), and he claims its fulfilment."
"If he insists upon my compliance," replied Amabel, in a tremulous voice, "I must obey. But it will make me wretched."
"Then I at once release you," replied Leonard. "I value your happiness far more than my own."
"You deserve better treatment, Leonard," said Bloundel; "and I am sorry my daughter cannot discern what is for her good. Let us hope that time will work a change in your favour."
"No," replied the apprentice, bitterly; "I will no longer delude myself with any such vain expectation."
"Amabel," observed the grocer, "as your father—as your wellwisher—I should desire to see you wedded to Leonard. But I have told your mother, and now tell you, that I will not control your inclinations, and will only attempt to direct you so far as I think likely to be conducive to your happiness. On another point, I must assume a very different tone. You can no longer plead ignorance of the designs of the depraved person who besets you. You may not be able to forget him—but you can avoid him. If you see him alone again—if but for a moment—I cast you off for ever. Yes, for ever," he repeated, with stern emphasis.
"I will never voluntarily see him again," replied Amabel, tremblingly.
"You have heard my determination," rejoined her father. "Do you still adhere to your resolution of remaining with me, Leonard?" he added, turning to the apprentice. "If what has just passed makes any alteration in your wishes, state so, frankly."
"I will stay," replied Leonard.
"There will be one advantage, which I did not foresee, in closing my house," remarked the grocer aside to the apprentice. "It will effectually keep away this libertine earl."
"Perhaps so," replied the other. "But I have more faith in my own vigilance than in bolts and bars."
Bloundel and Leonard then returned to the shop, where the former immediately began to make preparations for storing his house; and in the prosecution of his scheme he was greatly aided by the apprentice.
The grocer's dwelling, as has been stated, was large and commodious. It was three stories high; and beneath the ground-floor there were kitchens and extensive cellars. Many of the rooms were spacious, and had curiously carved fireplaces, walls pannelled with fine brown oak, large presses, and cupboards.
In the yard, at the back of the house, there was a pump, from which excellent water was obtained. There were likewise three large cisterns, supplied from the New River. Not satisfied with this, and anxious to obtain water in which no infected body could have lain, or clothes have been washed, Bloundel had a large tank placed within the cellar, and connecting it by pipes with the pump, he contrived an ingenious machine, by which he could work the latter from within the house—thus making sure of a constant supply of water direct from the spring.
He next addressed himself to the front of the house, where he fixed a pulley, with a rope and hook attached to it, to the beam above one of the smaller bay windows on the second story. By this means, he could let down a basket or any other article into the street, or draw up whatever he desired; and as he proposed using this outlet as the sole means of communication with the external world when his house was closed, he had a wooden shutter made in the form of a trap-door, which he could open and shut at pleasure.
Here it was his intention to station himself at certain hours of the day, and whenever he held any communication below, to flash off a pistol, so that the smoke of the powder might drive back the air, and purify any vapour that found entrance of its noxious particles.
He laid down to himself a number of regulations, which will be more easily shown and more clearly understood, on arriving at the period when his plans came to be in full operation. To give an instance, however—if a letter should be conveyed to him by means of the pulley, he proposed to steep it in a solution of vinegar and sulphur; and when dried and otherwise fumigated, to read it at a distance by the help of strong glasses.
In regard to provisions, after a careful calculation, he bought upwards of three thousand pounds' weight of hard sea-biscuits, similar to those now termed captain's biscuits, and had them stowed away in hogsheads. He next ordered twenty huge casks of the finest flour, which he had packed up with the greatest care, as if for a voyage to Barbadoes or Jamaica. As these were brought in through the yard an accident had well-nigh occurred which might have proved fatal to him. While superintending the labours of Leonard and Blaize, who were rolling the casks into the house—having stowed away as many as he conveniently could in the upper part of the premises—he descended to the cellar, and, opening a door at the foot of a flight of steps leading from the yard, called to them to lower the remaining barrels with ropes below. In the hurry, Blaize rolled a cask towards the open door, and in another instant it would have fallen upon the grocer, and perhaps have crushed him, but for the interposition of Leonard. Bloundel made no remark at the time; but he never forgot the service rendered him by the apprentice.
To bake the bread required an oven, and he accordingly built one in the garret, laying in a large stock of wood for fuel. Neither did he neglect to provide himself with two casks of meal.
But the most important consideration was butcher's meat; and for this purpose he went to Rotherhithe, where the plague had not yet appeared, and agreed with a butcher to kill him four fat bullocks, and pickle and barrel them as if for sea stores. He likewise directed the man to provide six large barrels of pickled pork, on the same understanding. These were landed at Queenhithe, and brought up to Wood-street, so that they passed for newly-landed grocery.
Hams and bacon forming part of his own trade, he wrote to certain farmers with whom he was in the habit of dealing, to send him up an unlimited supply of flitches and gammons; and his orders being promptly and abundantly answered, he soon found he had more bacon than he could possibly consume. He likewise laid in a good store of tongues, hung beef, and other dried meats.
As to wine, he already had a tolerable stock; but he increased it by half a hogshead of the best canary he could procure; two casks of malmsey, each containing twelve gallons; a quarter-cask of Malaga sack; a runlet of muscadine; two small runlets of aqua vitae; twenty gallons of aniseed water; and two eight-gallon runlets of brandy. To this he added six hogsheads of strongly-hopped Kent ale, calculated for keeping, which he placed in a cool cellar, together with three hogsheads of beer, for immediate use. Furthermore, he procured a variety of distilled waters for medicinal purposes, amongst which he included a couple of dozen of the then fashionable and costly preparation, denominated plague-water.
As, notwithstanding all his precautions, it was not impossible that some of his household might be attacked by the distemper, he took care to provide proper remedies, and, to Blaize's infinite delight, furnished himself with mithridates, Venice treacle, diascorium, the pill rufus (oh! how the porter longed to have the key of the medicine chest!), London treacle, turpentine, and other matters. He likewise collected a number of herbs and simples; as Virginian snakeweed, contrajerva, pestilence-wort, angelica, elecampane, zedoary, tormentil, valerian, lovage, devils-bit, dittany, master-wort, rue,
