The watchman knew not what to make of all this,so he let them alone till the morning-man or day-watchman,as they called him,came to relieve him.Giving him an account of the particulars,they knocked at the door a great while,but nobody answered;and they observed that the window or casement at which the person had looked out who had answered before continued open,being up two pair of stairs.
Upon this the two men,to satisfy their curiosity,got a long ladder,and one of them went up to the window and looked into the room,where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal manner,having no clothes on her but her shift.But though he called aloud,and putting in his long staff,knocked hard on the floor,yet nobody stirred or answered;neither could he hear any noise in the house.
He came down again upon this,and acquainted his fellow,who went up also;and finding it just so,they resolved to acquaint either the Lord Mayor or some other magistrate of it,but did not offer to go in at the window.The magistrate,it seems,upon the information of the two men,ordered the house to be broke open,a constable and other persons being appointed to be present,that nothing might be plundered;and accordingly it was so done,when nobody was found in the house but that young woman,who having been infected and past recovery,the rest had left her to die by herself,and were every one gone,having found some way to delude the watchman,and to get open the door,or get out at some back-door,or over the tops of the houses,so that he knew nothing of it;and as to those cries and shrieks which he heard,it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at the bitter parting,which,to be sure,it was to them all,this being the sister to the mistress of the family.The man of the house,his wife,several children,and servants,being all gone and fled,whether sick or sound,that I could never learn;nor,indeed,did Imake much inquiry after it.
Many such escapes were made out of infected houses,as particularly when the watchman was sent of some errand;for it was his business to go of any errand that the family sent him of;that is to say,for necessaries,such as food and physic;to fetch physicians,if they would come,or surgeons,or nurses,or to order the dead-cart,and the like;but with this condition,too,that when he went he was to lock up the outer door of the house and take the key away with him,To evade this,and cheat the watchmen,people got two or three keys made to their locks,or they found ways to unscrew the locks such as were screwed on,and so take off the lock,being in the inside of the house,and while they sent away the watchman to the market,to the bakehouse,or for one trifle or another,open the door and go out as often as they pleased.But this being found out,the officers afterwards had orders to padlock up the doors on the outside,and place bolts on them as they thought fit.
At another house,as I was informed,in the street next within Aldgate,a whole family was shut up and locked in because the maid-servant was taken sick.The master of the house had complained by his friends to the next alderman and to the Lord Mayor,and had consented to have the maid carried to the pest-house,but was refused;so the door was marked with a red cross,a padlock on the outside,as above,and a watchman set to keep the door,according to public order.
After the master of the house found there was no remedy,but that he,his wife,and his children were to be locked up with this poor distempered servant,he called to the watchman,and told him he must go then and fetch a nurse for them to attend this poor girl,for that it would be certain death to them all to oblige them to nurse her;and told him plainly that if he would not do this,the maid must perish either of the distemper or be starved for want of food,for he was resolved none of his family should go near her;and she lay in the garret four storey high,where she could not cry out,or call to anybody for help.
The watchman consented to that,and went and fetched a nurse,as he was appointed,and brought her to them the same evening.During this interval the master of the house took his opportunity to break a large hole through his shop into a bulk or stall,where formerly a cobbler had sat,before or under his shop-window;but the tenant,as may be supposed at such a dismal time as that,was dead or removed,and so he had the key in his own keeping.Having made his way into this stall,which he could not have done if the man had been at the door,the noise he was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman;I say,having made his way into this stall,he sat still till the watchman returned with the nurse,and all the next day also.But the night following,having contrived to send the watchman of another trifling errand,which,as I take it,was to an apothecary's for a plaister for the maid,which he was to stay for the making up,or some other such errand that might secure his staying some time;in that time he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house,and left the nurse and the watchman to bury the poor wench -that is,throw her into the cart -and take care of the house.
I could give a great many such stories as these,diverting enough,which in the long course of that dismal year I met with -that is,heard of -and which are very certain to be true,or very near the truth;that is to say,true in the general:for no man could at such a time learn all the particulars.There was likewise violence used with the watchmen,as was reported,in abundance of places;and I believe that from the beginning of the visitation to the end,there was not less than eighteen or twenty of them killed,or so wounded as to be taken up for dead,which was supposed to be done by the people in the infected houses which were shut up,and where they attempted to come out and were opposed.
