Because no man had yet been seen, nor woman on the premises; only dogs very wild and mad, but kept away from biting. "Strike again," said his lordship, nodding under his wig, with some courtesy; "we must never be impatient. Jemmy, strike again, my lad." Jemmy struck a thundering stroke, and out came Mrs Steelyard. She looked at them all, and then she said, with her eyes full on the Bishop's, "Are you robbers, or are you savages? My master in that state and you do this!" And they all saw that she could not weep, by reason of too much sorrow. "It is the Lord Bishop," said the footman, keeping a little away from her. "Excellent female," began his Lordship, spreading his hands in a habit learned according to his duties, "tell your master that his[C] Jehoshaphat wishes to see him." "Mr Jehoshaphat," she replied, "you are just in time, and no more, sir. How we have longed for a minister! You are just in time and no more, sir. Will you have the kindness to come this way, and to step as quietly as you can?" His Lordship liked not the look of this; being, however, a resolute man, he followed the stony woman up the staircase, and into a bedroom with the window-curtains three quarters drawn. And here he found a pastille burning, and a lot of medicine bottles, and a Bible on the table open, and on it a pair of spectacles. In the bed lay some one, with a face of fire heavily blotched with bungs of black, and all his body tossing with spasms and weak groaning. "What means this?" asked his Lordship, drawing considerably nearer to the door. "Only the[D] plague," said the stony woman; "he was took with it yesterday; doctor says he may last two hours more almost, particular if he can get anybody to take the symptoms off him. I expect to be down with it some time to-night, because I feel the tingling. But your Highness will stop and help us." "I am damned if I will," cried the Bishop, sinking both manners and dignity in the violence of alarm; and he ran down the stairs at such a pace that his apron strings burst, and he left it behind, and he jumped into the coach with his two feet foremost, and slammed up the windows, and ordered full speed. Then Parson Chowne rose, and threw off his mask, and drew back the window-curtain, and sat in his hunting-clothes, and watched with his usual bitter smile the rapid departure of his foe. And he had the Bishop's apron framed, and hung it in the parsonage hall, from a red-deer's antlers, with the name and date below. And so of that Bishop he heard no more.