CHAPTER VIII
The Plague
AS Spring advanced, the Plague came on amain. Houses were shut up, some empty, some with infected People in them under Guard, ne’er to be let out, save in perfect Health or to be cast into the Dead-cart. Swarms of People hurried out of Town, some in Health, some already infected: never was such a Blockade of Carts, Coaches, and Horsemen on the Bridge; and I was told, on the northern and western Roads ’twas still worse. Every Horse, good and bad, was in request, at enormous Hire: as soon as they had done Duty for one Party, they came back for another, so that the poor Things had an ill Time o’t. The Court set the Example of running away; the Nobility and Gentry followed it; the Soldiers were all sent to Country Quarters, the Tower was left under the Guard of a few Beef-eaters, all the Courts of Law were closed, and even the middle and lower Ranks that could not well afford to leave their Shops and Houses, thought it a good Matter to escape for bare Life, and live about the Country in removed Places, camping in the Fields, and under Hedges.
Houses were shut up, some empty, some
with infected people in them
Thus the City, which had previously been so over-filled as to provoke the comparing of it with Jerusalem before the last Passover, was in a Manner so depopulated, that though vast Numbers remained in its By-streets and Lanes, whole Rows of Houses stood empty. Those that walked abroad kept the Middle of the Streets for Fear of Infection; Grass began to grow between the Paving-stones; the Sound of Wheels was scarce heard, for People were afraid of using the Hackney-coaches; Beggars, and Street-singers, and Hawkers, had altogether disappeared; so that there was nothing to break the awful Stillness save the Shrieks of dying Persons in lone Houses, or the Rumbling of the Dead-cart.
Meanwhile, though the Distemper was raging on both Sides of us and all about us, it came not on the Bridge. Crowded Assemblages of Buyers and Sellers at Markets, &c., being much to be avoided, we laid in as much Stock as our small Premises would hold and our small Family require, of Soap, Candles, Groceries, Cheese, Bacon, salt Butter, and such-like. And whereas the Plague raged worse than Anywhere among the Butchers’ Stalls and low Fishmongers, we made a Merit of Necessity, and fasted from both Fish and fresh Meat, as well for our Health as our Sins, which, if sundry others had done in a proper Frame and Temper, ’tis likely they might have been spared.
Thus we kept close and went Abroad little, except to Public Prayers; reading and meditating much at Home, and considering, as Noah and his Family probably did in the Ark, that if our Confinement were irksome, ’twas a cheap Price to pay for Safety. Of the Blenkinsops we saw nothing after the regular Outburst of the Calamity; but we knew that Mistress Blenkinsop was not only resolved not to stir, but that she would not so much as lay in Stores for daily Consumption; perversely and cruelly persisting in sending her Servants into the Danger, she feared not for herself to purchase Pennyworths of Things she might have bought wholesale.
