d the infection did not break into
such houses so furiously as it did into others before; and thousands of
families were preserved, speaking with due reserve to the direction of
divine Providence, by that means.

But it was impossible to beat anything into the heads of the poor; they
went on with the usual impetuosity of their tempers, full of outcries
and lamentations when taken, but madly careless of themselves, foolhardy
and obstinate, while they were well. Where they could get employment,
they pushed into any kind of business, the most dangerous and the most
liable to infection; and if they were spoken to, their answer would
be:--"I must trust in God for that; if I am taken, then I am provided
for, and there is an end of me;" and the like. Or thus:--"Why, what must
I do? I cannot starve; I had as good have the plague as perish for want;
I have no work, what could I do? I must do this or beg." Suppose it was
burying the dead, or attending the sick, or watching infected houses,
which were all terrible hazards; but their tale was generally the same.
It is true, necessity was a justifiable, warrantable plea, and nothing
could be better; but their way of talk was much the same where the
necessities were not the same. This adventurous conduct of the poor was
that which brought the plague among them in a most furious manner; and
this, joined to the distress of their circumstances when taken, was the
reason why they died so by heaps; for I cannot say I could observe one
jot of better husbandry among them,--I mean the laboring poor,--while
they were all well and getting money, than there was before, but as
lavish, as extravagant, and as thoughtless for to-morrow as ever; so
that when they came to be taken sick, they were immediately in the
utmost distress, as well for want as for sickness, as well for lack of
food as lack of health.

FROM 'COLONEL JACK'

COLONEL JACK AND CAPTAIN JACK ESCAPE ARREST

We had not parleyed thus long, but though in the dead of the night, came
a man to the other inn door--for as I said above, there are two inns at
that place--and called for a pot of beer; but the people were all in
bed, and would not rise; he asked them if they had seen two fellows come
that way upon one horse. The man said he had; that they went by in the
afternoon, and asked the way to Cambridge, but did not stop only to
drink one mug. "Oh!" says he, "are they gone to Cambridge? Then I'll be
with them quickly." I was