A touching story is told of a clergyman at Eyam, in Derbyshire. A box of cloth was sent from London to a tailor in the village, who, soon after he had emptied the package, fell sick, and died. The pestilence presently swept away all in his house except one. It spread from cottage to cottage, and a grave-stone remains to tell the story of seven persons of the name of Hancock, who died within eight days. As the churchyard did not suffice for the burial of the dead, graves were dug in the fields and upon the hill-side, where corpses were hastily interred. The clergyman was Mr. Mompesson, a young man of twenty-eight, whose wife, alarmed for the safety of her husband and their two children, besought him to flee, but he would not leave his flock. With heroic love, whilst seeking his safety, she exposed herself to imminent danger; and consenting to the removal of the children, resolved to abide in the parsonage, where they remained for seven months. In conjunction with the Earl of Devonshire, the patron of the living, the Incumbent arranged that all communication with neighbouring places should be cut off, that no one should go beyond a boundary marked by stones, where people came and left provisions, and where the buyer put his money in a vessel of water. Combining singular prudence with ardent zeal, Mompesson provided for the continuance of religious services, without hazarding the health of his parishioners by bringing them into a crowded church, and wisely performed Divine service in the open air. In Cucklet Dale, by the side of a running brook, with a rock for his pulpit, with craggy hills on one side, and lofty trees on the other for the walls of his temple, he assembled his flock for worship, and was wonderfully preserved from contagion; but just as the Plague began to decline, his noble wife fell a victim to its power.[476] [Sidenote: 1665.] Nor let Thomas Stanley, a minister who had been ejected from the living of Eyam, be forgotten. He could not preach to the people whom he loved; but by visitation, advice, and prayer, he sought to promote their temporal and spiritual interests. Some looked with jealousy upon his efforts, and endeavoured to persuade the Earl of Devonshire to remove him from the place; but, whoever they were, the Earl was his friend, declaring it much more reasonable that the whole country should testify their thankfulness to such a spiritual benefactor.