The boys pressed near to look, for some in the crowd suddenly made exclamations as though they had caught a glimpse of the phantom; but look as they would the brothers saw nothing, and Joseph asked of an elderly man in the little crowd what it all meant.
"Methinks it means only that yon poor fellow has lost his reason," he answered, shaking his head.

"His wife was one of the first to die when the distemper broke out; and men called it only a fever, though some said she had the tokens on her.

She was buried here.
And it is but a week since the last of his children was taken--six in two weeks; and he has escaped out of his house, and wanders about the streets, and comes here every night, saying that he sees his dead wife, and that she is looking for her children, and cannot find them because they are lying in the plague pit.

He is distraught, poor fellow; but many men gather night by night to hear him.
"For my part, I will come no more.

Men are best at home in their own houses; and you lads had best go home as fast as you can.