But our three travellers were obliged to keep the road, or else they
must commit spoil, and do the country a great deal of damage in
breaking down fences and gates to go over enclosed fields, which they
were loth to do if they could help it.
Our three travellers, however, had a great mind to join themselves to
this company and take their lot with them; and after some discourse
they laid aside their first design which looked northward, and resolved
to follow the other into Essex; so in the morning they took up their
tent and loaded their horse, and away they travelled all together.
They had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the river-side, the
ferryman being afraid of them; but after some parley at a distance, the
ferryman was content to bring his boat to a place distant from the
usual ferry, and leave it there for them to take it; so putting
themselves over, he directed them to leave the boat, and he, having
another boat, said he would fetch it again, which it seems, however,
he did not do for above eight days.
Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had a supply of
victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for them; but
not without, as I said, having received the money beforehand. But
now our travellers were at a great loss and difficulty how to get the
horse over, the boat being small and not fit for it: and at last could not
do it without unloading the baggage and making him swim over.
From the river they travelled towards the forest, but when they came
to Walthamstow the people of that town denied to admit them, as was
the case everywhere. The constables and their watchmen kept them
off at a distance and parleyed with them. They gave the same account
of themselves as before, but these gave no credit to what they said,
giving it for a reason that two or three companies had already come
that way and made the like pretences, but that they had given several
people the distemper in the towns where they had passed; and had
been afterwards so hardly used by the country (though with justice,
too, as they had deserved) that about Brentwood, or that way, several
of them perished in the fields – whether of the plague or of mere want
and distress they could not tell.
This was a good reason indeed why the people of Walthamstow
should be very cautious, and why they should resolve not to entertain
anybody that they were not well satisfied of. But, as Richard the
joiner and one of the other men who parleyed with them told them, it
was no reason why they should block up the roads and refuse to let
people pass through the town, and who asked nothing of them but to
go through the street; that if their people were afraid of them, they
might go into their houses and shut their doors; they would neither
show them civility nor incivility, but go on about their business.
The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by reason,
continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing; so the two men
that talked with them went back to their fellows to consult what was
to be done. It was very discouraging in the whole, and they knew not
what to do for a good while; but at last John the soldier and biscuit-
maker, considering a while, ‘Come,’ says he, ‘leave the rest of the
parley to me.’ He had not appeared yet, so he sets the joiner, Richard,
to work to cut some poles out of the trees and shape them as like guns
as he could, and in a little time he had five or six fair muskets, which
at a distance would not be known; and about the part where the lock
of a gun is he caused them to wrap cloth and rags such as they had, as
soldiers do in wet weather to preserve the locks of their pieces from
rust; the rest was discoloured with clay or mud, such as they could
get; and all this while the rest of them sat under the trees by his