She is a most unhappy lady."
"You would scarcely say as much, young madam, had you seen her in her pomp
and power yonder. And as for Lord St. Albans, if he is not her husband--!
Well, thou art a young innocent thing--so I had best hold my peace. Both
palaces are empty and forsaken, both Whitehall and Somerset House. The rats
and the spiders can take their own pleasure in the rooms that were full of
music and dancing, card-playing and feasting, two or three months ago. Why,
there was no better sight in London, after the dead-cart, than to watch the
train of carriages and horsemen, carts and wagons, upon any of the great
high-roads, carrying the people of London away to the country, as if the
whole city had been moving in one mass like a routed army."
"But in palaces and noblemen's houses surely there would be little
danger?" said Angela. "Plagues and fevers are the outcome of hunger and
uncleanliness, and all such evils as the poor have to suffer."
"Nay, but the pestilence that walketh in darkness is no respecter of
persons," answered the grim boatman. "I grant you that death has dealt
hardest with the poor who dwell in crowded lanes and alleys. But now the
very air reeks with poison.
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