A remarkable incident occurred while the fell disease was in the full swing of its ravages. The wife of a working man living in the Old Town, a low-lying and densely populated quarter, was attacked by it, and at once removed to a temporary hospital that had been established on Duppas Hill, a tabular eminence overlooking the town, and in the thirteenth century the scene of the tournament in which the son of Earl Warrenne was by misadventure slain. There her husband went, on his return from labour, to ascertain her condition, and heard with a shock which the reader may imagine that she was dead. When the poor fellow had in some degree recovered from the blow, he expressed a wish to see the corpse and take it to his home. He seems to have been unable to realise that his wife was really dead, though the nurses and doctors assured him that she had passed away. The idea that life yet lingered in the form that was apparently lifeless grew upon him as he gazed and though he may never have read "The Giaour," he may have felt the force of the thought so finely expressed by Byron in the lines that introduce his picture of the Greece of his day:-- "He who hath bent him o'er the dead, Ere the first day of death is fled, The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress (Before Decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers), And marked the mild angelic air, The rapture of repose that's there, The fixed yet tender traits that streak The languor of the pallid cheek, And--but for that sad shrouded eye, That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, And but for that chill, changeless brow, Where cold Obstruction's apathy Appals the gazing mourner's heart, As if to him it could impart The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; Yes, but for these, and these alone, Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour, He still might doubt the tyrant's power; So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, The first, last look by death revealed!"