to think of
being shut up in an infected house with a person smitten with the
fell disease. Yet if the houses were not so closed, and guarded by
watchmen hired for the purpose, the sick in their delirium would
have constantly been getting out and running madly about the
streets, as indeed did sometimes happen, infecting every person
they met. Restraint of some sort was needful, and the closing of
the houses seemed the only way in which this could be accomplished.

It may be guessed what hard work all this entailed upon such of the
better sort of citizens as were willing to give themselves to the
business. James Harmer and his two elder sons, Reuben and Dan,
offered themselves to the Lord Mayor to act as examiners or
searchers, or in whatever capacity he might wish to employ them.
Dan should by this time have been at sea, but his ship being still
in the docks when the plague broke out remained yet unladed. None
from the infected city would purchase merchandise. The sailing
master had himself been smitten down, and Dan, together with quite
a number of sailors, was thrown out of employment.

Many of these poor fellows were glad to take service as watchmen of
infected houses, or even as bearers and buriers of the dead. At a
time when trade was at a standstill, and men feared alike to buy or
to sell, this perilous and lugubrious occupation was all that could
be obtained, and so there were always men to be found for the task
of watching the houses, though at other times it might have been
impossible to get enough.

Orders had been sent round the town that all cases of the distemper
were to be reported within a few hours of discovery to the examiner
of health, who then had the house shut up, supplied it with a day
and a night watchman (whose duty it was to wait on the inmates and
bring them all they needed), and had the door marked with the
ominous red cross and the motto of which mention has been made
before. Plague nurses were numerous, but too often these were women
of the worst character, bent rather upon plunder than desirous of
relieving the sufferers. Grim stories were told of their neglect
and rapacity. Yet amongst them were many devoted and excellent
women, and the physicians who bravely faced the terrors of the time
and remained at their post when others fled from the peril, deserve
all honour and praise; the more so that many amongst these died of
the infection, as indeed did numbers of the examiners and search