John.Look you,Tom,the whole kingdom is my native country as well as this town.You may as well say I must not go out of my house if it is on fire as that I must not go out of the town I was born in when it is infected with the plague.I was born in England,and have a right to live in it if I can.
Thomas.But you know every vagrant person may by the laws of England be taken up,and passed back to their last legal settlement.
John.But how shall they make me vagrant?I desire only to travel on,upon my lawful occasions.
Thomas.What lawful occasions can we pretend to travel,or rather wander upon?They will not be put off with words.
John.Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion?
And do they not all know that the fact is true?
We cannot be said to dissemble.
Thomas.But suppose they let us pass,whither shall we go?
John.Anywhere,to save our lives;it is time enough to consider that when we are got out of this town.If I am once out of this dreadful place,I care not where I go.
Thomas.We shall be driven to great extremities.I know not what to think of it.
John.Well,Tom,consider of it a little.
This was about the beginning of July;and though the plague was come forward in the west and north parts of the town,yet all Wapping,as I have observed before,and Redriff,and Ratdiff,and Limehouse,and Poplar,in short,Deptford and Greenwich,all both sides of the river from the Hermitage,and from over against it,quite down to Blackwall,was entirely free;there had not one person died of the plague in all Stepney parish,and not one on the south side of Whitechappel Road,no,not in any parish;and yet the weekly bill was that very week risen up to 1006.
It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met again,and then the case was a little altered,and the'plague was exceedingly advanced and the number greatly increased;the bill was up at 2785,and prodigiously increasing,though still both sides of the river,as below,kept pretty well.But some began to die in Redriff,and about five or six in Ratdiff Highway,when the sailmaker came to his brother John express,and in some fright;for he was absolutely warned out of his lodging,and had only a week to provide himself.
His brother John was in as bad a case,for he was quite out,and had only begged leave of his master,the biscuit-maker,to lodge in an outhouse belonging to his workhouse,where he only lay upon straw,with some biscuit-sacks,or bread-sacks,as they called them,laid upon it,and some of the same sacks to cover him.
Here they resolved (seeing all employment being at an end,and no work or wages to be had),they would make the best of their way to get out of the reach of the dreadful infection,and,being as good husbands as they could,would endeavour to live upon what they had as long as it would last,and then work for more if they could get work anywhere,of any kind,let it be what it would.
While they were considering to put this resolution in practice in the best manner they could,the third man,who was acquainted very well with the sailmaker,came to know of the design,and got leave to be one of the number;and thus they prepared to set out.
It happened that they had not an equal share of money;but as the sailmaker,who had the best stock,was,besides his being lame,the most unfit to expect to get anything by working in the country,so he was content that what money they had should all go into one public stock,on condition that whatever any one of them could gain more than another,it should without any grudging be all added to the public stock.
They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as possible because they resolved at first to travel on foot,and to go a great way that they might,if possible,be effectually safe;and a great many consultations they had with themselves before they could agree about what way they should travel,which they were so far from adjusting that even to the morning they set out they were not resolved on it.
At last the seaman put in a hint that determined it.'First,'says he,'the weather is very hot,and therefore I am for travelling north,that we may not have the sun upon our faces and beating on our breasts,which will heat and suffocate us;and I have been told',says he,'that it is not good to overheat our blood at a time when,for aught we know,the infection may be in the very air.In the next place,'says he,'I am for going the way that may be contrary to the wind,as it may blow when we set out,that we may not have the wind blow the air of the city on our backs as we go.'These two cautions were approved of,if it could be brought so to hit that the wind might not be in the south when they set out to go north.
John the baker,who bad been a soldier,then put in his opinion.
'First,'says he,'we none of us expect to get any lodging on the road,and it will be a little too hard to lie just in the open air.Though it be warm weather,yet it may be wet and damp,and we have a double reason to take care of our healths at such a time as this;and therefore,'says he,'you,brother Tom,that are a sailmaker,might easily make us a little tent,and I will undertake to set it up every night,and take it down,and a fig for all the inns in England;if we have a good tent over our heads we shall do well enough.'
The joiner opposed this,and told them,let them leave that to him;he would undertake to build them a house every night with his hatchet and mallet,though he had no other tools,which should be fully to their satisfaction,and as good as a tent.