business and interest, there was a deep
gloom. Projects which affected the fortunes of nations were in suspense,
because there was no rain. Cares for the succession of crowns, and the
formation of constitutions, might all be futile, if there should be no
rain: and it seemed as if there never would be any; for this was now the
third year, and the earth had not received a shower. And now, ceasing to
be supplied from their usual sources, the springs and rivers withered
and shrank. Water became in many places not dear, but unattainable. The
greatest people of the land left it, and used their wealth in chasing
the retreating element from place to place on the earth. In some cases,
among these luxurious spirits there were scenes of extravagant revelry
still; they had no employment except to live, and they endeavoured to
make the act of living as exciting as their old amusements had been. But
accounts of foreign countries came more and more rarely to England; for
when the fourth rainless year arrived, drought and famine had slain
three-fourths of its inhabitants, and commerce and agriculture were
alike suspended. When a vessel came as far up in the mouth of a river as
the sinking waters permitted, it brought tidings of desolation from
whatever port it had left. Stories began to spread of dry land in parts
of the ocean where it had never been seen before; marks which had stood
in the deep of the sea might now be walked round at all times of the
tide, and thick crusts of salt were beginning to spread upon tracts of
the great deep. These tidings from foreign lands came at long intervals,
and at long intervals was a ship sent from any English haven. The few
dwellers of the coast knew not if there were still any dwellers of the
interior: for England was become like the desert; and there were no
beasts to carry one across it, and no water to be hoarded in skins for
the passage. Traffic of every kind ceased; industry was gone; the
secrets of science, and the cultivated mind of the philosopher, were all
bent to the production of water; and many a precious object was resolved
back into its elements, and afforded a scanty supply to a few parched
mouths. The lingering inhabitants had the produce of past years only to
live upon, which nothing replenished as it diminished, and to renew
which the baked earth was wholly incompetent.

In the heart of this desert, there was a family which had hitherto
survived the destruction of life around th