they were ready to give what account of themselves anybody could
desire of them, and to give in their names and places of abode, that so
they might be called to an account for any disorder that they might be
guilty of; that the townsmen might see they were content to live
hardly, and only desired a little room to breathe in on the forest where
it was wholesome; for where it was not they could not stay, and would
decamp if they found it otherwise there.
‘But,’ said the townsmen, ‘we have a great charge of poor upon our
hands already, and we must take care not to increase it; we suppose
you can give us no security against your being chargeable to our
parish and to the inhabitants, any more than you can of being
dangerous to us as to the infection.’
‘Why, look you,’ says John, ‘as to being chargeable to you, we hope
we shall not. If you will relieve us with provisions for our present
necessity, we will be very thankful; as we all lived without charity
when we were at home, so we will oblige ourselves fully to repay you,
if God pleases to bring us back to our own families and houses in
safety, and to restore health to the people of London.
‘As to our dying here: we assure you, if any of us die, we that survive
will bury them, and put you to no expense, except it should be that we
should all die; and then, indeed, the last man not being able to bury
himself, would put you to that single expense which I am persuaded’,
says John, ‘he would leave enough behind him to pay you for the
expense of.
‘On the other hand,’ says John, ‘if you shut up all bowels of
compassion, and not relieve us at all, we shall not extort anything by
violence or steal from any one; but when what little we have is spent,
if we perish for want, God’s will be done.’
John wrought so upon the townsmen, by talking thus rationally and
smoothly to them, that they went away; and though they did not give
any consent to their staying there, yet they did not molest them; and
the poor people continued there three or four days longer without any
disturbance. In this time they had got some remote acquaintance with
a victualling-house at the outskirts of the town, to whom they called at
a distance to bring some little things that they wanted, and which they
caused to be set down at a distance, and always paid for very honestly.
During this time the younger people of the town came frequently
pretty near them, and would stand and look at them, and sometimes
talk with them at some space between; and particularly it was
observed that the first Sabbath-day the poor people kept retired,
worshipped God together, and were heard to sing psalms.
These things, and a quiet, inoffensive behaviour, began to get them
the good opinion of the country, and people began to pity them and
speak very well of them; the consequence of which was, that upon the
occasion of a very wet, rainy night, a certain gentleman who lived in
the neighbourhood sent them a little cart with twelve trusses or
bundles of straw, as well for them to lodge upon as to cover and
thatch their huts and to keep them dry. The minister of a parish not
far off, not knowing of the other, sent them also about two bushels of
wheat and half a bushel of white peas.
They were very thankful, to be sure, for this relief, and particularly
the straw was a -very great comfort to them; for though the ingenious
carpenter had made frames for them to lie in like troughs, and filled
them with leaves of trees, and such things as they could get, and had
cut all their tent-cloth out to make them coverlids, yet they lay damp
and hard and unwholesome till this straw came, which was to them
like feather-beds, and, as John said, more welcome than feather-beds
would have been at another time.
This gentleman and the minister having thus begun, and given an