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 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 this 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 I make much inquiry after it.

At another house, as I was informed, in the street next within Aldgate,
a whole family was shut up and locked in because the maidservant 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 pesthouse, 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 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 would perish either[98] 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 story
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