But it was only postponed, for like a cumulative tax it was heaping up against the country, and at last the hour had come for payment to an authority whose books must be balanced without remittance or reduction.

What is due to nature that nature takes in her own way and season, neither less nor more, unless indeed the skill and providence of man can find means to force her to write off the debt.
Five days after my encounter with the red-headed vagrant, the following paragraph appeared in one of the local papers: "Pocklingham.

In the casual ward of the Union house for this district a tramp, name unknown, died last night.

He had been admitted on the previous evening, but, for some unexplained reason, it was not noticed until the next morning that he suffered from illness, and, therefore, he was allowed to mix with the other inmates in the general ward.Drs.Butt and Clarkson, who were called in to attend, state that the cause of death was the worst form of smallpox.

The body will be buried in quicklime, but some alarm is felt in the district owing to the deceased, who, it is said, arrived here from Dunchester, where he had been frequenting various tramps' lodgings, having mixed with a number of other vagrants, who left the house before the character of his sickness was discovered, and who cannot now be traced.