Adjacent to the house occupied by Baxter was an antique
brick tenement. It was one of the first erections made
by the followers of William Penn. It had the honor to be
used as the temporary residence of that venerable person.
Its moss-grown penthouse, crumbling walls, and ruinous
porch, made it an interesting and picturesque object. Notwithstanding
its age, it was still tenable.

This house was occupied, during the preceding months,
by a Frenchman. His dress and demeanor were respectable.
His mode of life was frugal almost to penuriousness,
and his only companion was a daughter. The lady seemed
not much less than thirty years of age, but was of a small
and delicate frame. It was she that performed every household
office. She brought water from the pump and provisions
from the market. Their house had no visitants, and
was almost always closed. Duly, as the morning returned,
a venerable figure was seen issuing from his door, dressed
in the same style of tarnished splendor and old fashioned

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

preciseness. At the dinner hour he as regularly returned.
For the rest of the day he was invisible.

The habitations in this quarter are few and scattered.
The pestilence soon showed itself here, and the flight of
most of the inhabitants, augmented its desolateness and dreariness.
For some time, Monrose, that was his name, made
his usual appearance in the morning. At length the neighbors
remarked that he no longer came forth as usual. Baxter
had a notion that Frenchmen were exempt from this disease.
He was, besides, deeply and rancorously prejudiced
against that nation. There will be no difficulty in accounting
for this, when it is known that he had been an English
grenadier at Dettingen and Minden. It must likewise be
added, that he was considerably timid, and had sickness in
his own family. Hence it was that the disappearance of
Monrose excited in him no inquisitiveness as to the cause.
He did not even mention this circumstance to others.

The lady was occasionally seen as usual in the street.
There were always remarkable peculiarities in her behaviour.
In the midst of grave and disconsolate looks, she never laid
aside an air of solemn dignity. She seemed to shrink from
the observation of others, and her eyes were always fixed
upon the ground. One evening Baxter was passing the
pump while she was drawing water. The sadness which
her looks betokened, and a suspicion that her father might
be sick, had a momentary effect upon his feelings. He
stopped and asked how her father was. She paid a polite
attention to his question, and said something in French.
This and the embarrassment of her air, convinced him that
his words were not understood. He said no more (what indeed
could he say?) but passed on.

Two or three days after this, on returning in the evening
to his family, his wife expressed her surprise in not having
seen Miss Monrose in the street that day. She had not been
at the pump, nor had gone, as usual, to market. This information
gave him some disquiet; yet he could form no resolution.
As to entering the house and offering his aid, if
aid were needed, he had too much regard for his own safety,
and too little for that of a frog-eating Frenchman, to think
seriously of that expedient. His attention was speedily

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

diverted by other objects, and Monrose was, for the present,
forgotten.

Baxter's profession was that of a porter. He was thrown
out of employment by the present state of things. The solicitude
of the guardians of the city was exerted on this occasion,
not only in opposing the progress of disease, and
furnishing provisions to the destitute, but in the preservation
of property. For this end the number of nightly watchmen
was increased. Baxter entered himself in this service. From
nine till twelve o'clock at night it was his province to occupy
a certain post.

On this night he attended his post as usual. Twelve
o'clock arrived, and he bent his steps homeward. It was
necessary to pass by Monrose's door. On approaching this
house, the circumstance mentioned by his wife recurred to
him. Something like compassion was conjured up in his
heart by the figure of the lady, as he recollected to have
lately seen it. It was obvious to conclude that sickness was
the cause of her seclusion. The same, it might be, had
confined her father. If this were true, how deplorable might
be their present condition! Without food, without physician
or friends, ignorant of the language of the country, and thence
unable to communicate their wants or solicit succor; fugitives
from their native land, neglected, solitary, and poor.

His heart was softened by these images. He stopped involuntarily
when opposite their door. He looked up at the
house. The shutters were closed, so that light, if it were
within, was invisible. He stepped into the porch, and put
his eye to the key hole. All was darksome and waste. He
listened and imagined that he heard the aspirations of grief.
The sound was scarcely articulate, but had an electrical
effect upon his feelings. He retired to his home full of
mournful reflections.

He was willing to do something for the relief of the sufferers,
but nothing could be done that night. Yet succor,
if delayed till the morning, might be ineffectual. But how,
when the morning came, should he proceed to effectuate his
kind intentions? The guardians of the public welfare, at
this crisis, were distributed into those who counselled and
those who executed. A set of men, self appointed to the
generous office, employed themselves in seeking out the

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

destitute or sick, and imparting relief. With this arrangement,
Baxter was acquainted. He was resolved to carry tidings
of what he had heard and seen to one of those persons early
the next day.

Baxter, after taking some refreshment, retired to rest. In
no long time, however, he was awakened by his wife, who
desired him to notice a certain glimmering on the ceiling. It
seemed the feeble and flitting ray of a distant and moving
light, coming through the window. It did not proceed from
the street, for the chamber was lighted from the side, and
not from the front of the house. A lamp borne by a passenger,
or the attendants of a hearse, could not be discovered
in this situation. Besides, in the latter case, it would
be accompanied by the sound of the vehicle, and probably,
by weeping and exclamations of despair. His employment,
as the guardian of property, naturally suggested to him the
idea of robbery. He started from his bed, and went to the
window.

His house stood at the distance of about fifty paces from
that of Monrose. There was annexed to the latter, a small
garden or yard, bounded by a high wooden fence. Baxter's
window overlooked this space. Before he reached the
window, the relative situation of the two habitations occurred
to him. A conjecture was instantly formed that the glimmering
proceeded from this quarter. His eye, therefore,
was immediately fixed upon Monrose's back door. It caught
a glimpse of a human figure, passing into the house, through
this door. The person had a candle in his hand. This appeared
by the light which streamed after him, and which
was perceived, though faintly, through a small window of the
dwelling, after the back door was closed.

The person disappeared too quickly to allow him to say
whether it was male or female. This scrutiny confirmed,
rather than weakened the apprehensions that first occurred.
He reflected on the desolate and helpless condition of this
family. The father might be sick; and what opposition
could be made by the daughter to the stratagems or violence
of midnight plunderers. This was an evil which it was his
duty, in an extraordinary sense, to obviate. It is true, the
hour of watching was passed, and this was not the district
assigned to him; but Baxter was, on the whole, of a

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

generous and intrepid spirit. In the present case, therefore, he
did not hesitate long in forming his resolution. He seized
a hanger that hung at his bedside, and which had hewn
many a Hungarian and French hussar to pieces. With this
he descended to the street. He cautiously approached Monrose's
house. He listened at the door, but heard nothing.
The lower apartment, as he discovered through the key hole,
was deserted and dark. These appearances could not be
accounted for. He was, as yet, unwilling to call or to knock.
He was solicitous to obtain some information by silent means,
and without alarming the persons within, who, if they were
robbers, might thus be put upon their guard, and enabled to
escape. If none but the family were there, they would not
understand his signals, and might impute the disturbance to
the cause which he was desirous to obviate. What could he
do? Must he patiently wait till some incident should happen
to regulate his motions?

In this uncertainty, he bethought himself of going round to
the back part of the dwelling, and watching the door which
had been closed. An open space, filled with rubbish and
weeds, adjoined the house and garden on one side. Hither
he repaired, and raising his head above the fence, at a point
directly opposite the door, waited with considerable impatience
for some token or signal, by which he might be directed
in his choice of measures.

Human life abounds with mysterious appearances. A
man, perched on a fence, at midnight, mute and motionless,
and gazing at a dark and dreary dwelling, was an object calculated
to rouse curiosity. When the muscular form, and
rugged visage, scarred and furrowed into something like ferocity,
were added; when the nature of the calamity, by
which the city was dispeopled, was considered, the motives
to plunder, and the insecurity of property, arising from the
pressure of new wants on the poor, and the flight or disease
of the rich, were attended to, an observer would be apt to
admit fearful conjectures.

We know not how long Baxter continued at this post.
He remained here, because he could not, as he conceived,
change it for a better. Before his patience was exhausted,
his attention was called by a noise within the house. It proceeded
from the lower room. The sound was that of steps,

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

but this was accompanied with other inexplicable tokens.
The kitchen door at length opened. The figure of Miss
Monrose, pale, emaciated, and haggard, presented itself.
Within the door stood a candle. It was placed on a chair
within sight, and its rays streamed directly against the face
of Baxter, as it was reared above the top of the fence. This
illumination, faint as it was, bestowed a certain air of wildness
on features which nature, and the sanguinary habits of
a soldier, had previously rendered, in an eminent degree,
harsh and stern. He was not aware of the danger of discovery,
in consequence of this position of the candle. His
attention was, for a few seconds, engrossed by the object
before him. At length he chanced to notice another object.

At a few yards distance from the fence, and within it,
some one appeared to have been digging. An opening was
made in the ground, but it was shallow and irregular. The
implement which seemed to have been used, was nothing
more than a fire shovel, for one of these he observed lying
near the spot. The lady had withdrawn from the door,
though without closing it. He had leisure, therefore, to attend
to this new circumstance, and to reflect upon the purpose
for which this opening might have been designed.

Death is familiar to the apprehensions of a soldier. Baxter
had assisted at the hasty interment of thousands, the victims
of the sword or of pestilence. Whether it was because
this theatre of human calamity was new to him, and death,
in order to be viewed with his ancient unconcern, must be
accompanied in the ancient manner, with halberts and tents,
certain it is, that Baxter was irresolute and timid in every
thing that respected the yellow fever. The circumstances
of the time suggested that this was a grave, to which some
victim of this disease was to be consigned. His teeth chattered
when he reflected how near he might now be to the
source of infection; yet his curiosity retained him at his
post.

He fixed his eyes once more upon the door. In a short
time the lady again appeared at it. She was in a stooping
posture, and appeared to be dragging something along the
floor. His blood ran cold at this spectacle. His fear instantly
figured to itself a corpse, livid and contagious. Still
he had no power to move. The lady's strength, enfeebled

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

as it was by grief, and perhaps by the absence of nourishment,
seemed scarcely adequate to the task which she had
assigned herself.

Her burthen, whatever it was, was closely wrapt in a
sheet. She drew it forward a few paces, then desisted, and
seated herself on the ground, apparently to recruit her
strength, and give vent to the agony of her thoughts in sighs.
Her tears were either exhausted or refused to flow, for none
were shed by her. Presently she resumed her undertaking.
Baxter's horror increased in proportion as she drew nearer
to the spot where he stood, and yet it seemed as if some fascination
had forbidden him to recede.

At length the burthen was drawn to the side of the opening
in the earth. Here it seemed as if the mournful task
was finished. She threw herself once more upon the earth.
Her senses seemed for a time to have forsaken her. She
sat buried in reverie, her eyes scarcely open and fixed upon
the ground, and every feature set to the genuine expression
of sorrow. Some disorder, occasioned by the circumstance
of dragging, now took place in the vestment of what he had
rightly predicted to be a dead body. The veil by accident
was drawn aside, and exhibited, to the startled eye of Baxter,
the pale and ghastly visage of the unhappy Monrose.

This incident determined him. Every joint in his frame
trembled, and he hastily withdrew from the fence. His first
motion in doing this produced a noise by which the lady was
alarmed; she suddenly threw her eyes upward, and gained
a full view of Baxter's extraordinary countenance, just before
it disappeared. She manifested her terror by a piercing
shriek. Baxter did not stay to mark her subsequent
conduct, to confirm or to dissipate her fears, but retired, in
confusion, to his own house.

Hitherto his caution had availed him. He had carefully
avoided all employments and places from which he imagined
imminent danger was to be dreaded. Now, through his
own inadvertency, he had rushed, as he believed, into the
jaws of the pest. His senses had not been assailed by any
noisome effluvia. This was no unplausible ground for imagining
that his death had some other cause than the yellow
fever. This circumstance did not occur to Baxter. He

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

had been told that Frenchmen were not susceptible of this
contagion. He had hitherto believed this assertion, but now
regarded it as having been fully confuted. He forgot that
Frenchmen were undoubtedly mortal, and that there was no
impossibility in Monrose's dying, even at this time, of a malady
different from that which prevailed.

Before morning he began to feel very unpleasant symptoms.
He related his late adventure to his wife. She endeavored,
by what arguments her slender ingenuity suggested,
to quiet his apprehensions, but in vain. He hourly
grew worse, and as soon as it was light, despatched his wife
for a physician. On interrogating this messenger, the physician
obtained information of last night's occurrences, and
this being communicated to one of the dispensers of the public
charity, they proceeded, early in the morning, to Monrose's
house. It was closed as usual. They knocked and
called, but no one answered. They examined every avenue
to the dwelling, but none of them were accessible. They
passed into the garden, and observed, on the spot marked
out by Baxter, a heap of earth. A very slight exertion was
sufficient to remove it and discover the body of the unfortunate
exile beneath.

After unsuccessfully trying various expedients for entering
the house, they deemed themselves authorized to break the
door. They entered, ascended the staircase, and searched
every apartment in the house, but no human being was discoverable.
The furniture was wretched and scanty, but
there was no proof that Monrose had fallen a victim to the
reigning disease. It was certain that the lady had disappeared.
It was inconceivable whither she had gone.

Baxter suffered a long period of sickness. The prevailing
malady appeared upon him in its severest form. His
strength of constitution, and the careful attendance of his
wife, were insufficient to rescue him from the grave. His
case may be quoted as an example of the force of imagination.
He had probably already received, through the medium
of the air, or by contact of which he was not conscious,
the seeds of this disease. They might perhaps have
lain dormant, had not this panic occurred to endow them
with activity.

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