Constable. Why, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by force,
will you?
John. We have offered no violence to you yet. Why do you seem to
oblige us to it? I am an old soldier, and cannot starve, and if you think
that we shall be obliged to go back for want of provisions, you are
mistaken.
Constable. Since you threaten us, we shall take care to be strong
enough for you. I have orders to raise the county upon you.
John. It is you that threaten, not we. And since you are for
mischief, you cannot blame us if we do not give you time for it; we
shall begin our march in a few minutes.*
Constable. What is it you demand of us?
John. At first we desired nothing of you but leave to go through the
town; we should have offered no injury to any of you, neither would
you have had any injury or loss by us. We are not thieves, but poor
people in distress, and flying from the dreadful plague in London,
which devours thousands every week. We wonder how you could be
so unmerciful!
Constable. Self-preservation obliges us.
John. What! To shut up your compassion in a case of such distress
as this?
Constable. Well, if you will pass over the fields on your left hand,
and behind that part of the town, I will endeavour to have gates
opened for you.
John. Our horsemen ** cannot pass with our baggage that way; it
does not lead into the road that we want to go, and why should you
force us out of the road? Besides, you have kept us here all
* This frighted the constable and the people that were with him, that
they immediately changed their note.
** They had but one horse among them. [Footnotes in the original.]
day without any provisions but such as we brought with us. I think
you ought to send us some provisions for our relief.
Constable. If you will go another way we will send you some
provisions.
John. That is the way to have all the towns in the county stop up the
ways against us.
Constable. If they all furnish you with food, what will you be the
worse? I see you have tents; you want no lodging.
John. Well, what quantity of provisions will you send us?
Constable. How many are you?
John. Nay, we do not ask enough for all our company; we are in
three companies. If you will send us bread for twenty men and about
six or seven women for three days, and show us the way over the field
you speak of, we desire not to put your people into any fear for us; we
will go out of our way to oblige you, though we are as free from
infection as you are.*
Constable. And will you assure us that your other people shall offer
us no new disturbance?
John. No, no you may depend on it.
Constable. You must oblige yourself, too, that none of your people
shall come a step nearer than where the provisions we send you shall
be set down.
John. I answer for it we will not.
Accordingly they sent to the place twenty loaves of bread and three
or four large pieces of good beef, and opened some gates, through
which they passed; but none of them had courage so much as to look
out to see them go, and, as it was evening, if they had looked they
could not have seen them as to know how few they were.
This was John the soldier’s management. But this gave such an
alarm to the county, that had they really been two or three hundred the
whole county would have been raised upon them, and
* Here he called to one of his men, and bade him order Captain
Richard and his people to march the lower way on the side of the
marches, and meet them in the forest; which was all a sham, for they
had no Captain Richard, or any such company. [Footnote in the original.]
they would have been sent to prison, or perhaps knocked on the head.