of the
infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters,
and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may not be obliged to
come on shore. And every night I fasten my boat on board one of the
ship's boats, and there I sleep by myself, and, blessed be God! I am
preserved hitherto."

"Well," said I, "friend, but will they let you come on board after you
have been on shore here, when this has been such a terrible place, and
so infected as it is?"

"Why, as to that," said he, "I very seldom go up the ship side, but
deliver what I bring to their boat, or lie by the side, and they hoist
it on board: if I did, I think they are in no danger from me, for I
never go into any house on shore, or touch anybody, no, not of my own
family; but I fetch provisions for them."

"Nay," says I, "but that may be worse; for you must have those
provisions of somebody or other; and since all this part of the town is
so infected, it is dangerous so much as to speak with anybody; for the
village," said I, "is, as it were, the beginning of London, though it be
at some distance from it."

"That is true," added he; "but you do not understand me right. I do not
buy provisions for them here. I row up to Greenwich, and buy fresh meat
there, and sometimes I row down the river to Woolwich,[170] and buy
there; then I go to single farmhouses on the Kentish side, where I am
known, and buy fowls and eggs and butter, and bring to the ships as they
direct me, sometimes one, sometimes the other. I seldom come on shore
here, and I came only now to call my wife, and hear how my little family
do, and give them a little money which I received last night."

"Poor man!" said I. "And how much hast thou gotten for them?"

"I have gotten four shillings," said he, "which is a great sum, as
things go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of bread too,
and a salt fish, and some flesh: so all helps out."

"Well," said I, "and have you given it them yet?"

"No," said he, "but I have called; and my wife has answered that she
cannot come out yet, but in half an hour she hopes to come, and I am
waiting for her. Poor woman!" says he, "she is brought sadly down; she
has had a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she will recover, but I
fear the child will die. But it is the Lord!"--Here he stopped, and wept
very much.

"Well, honest friend," said I, "thou hast a sure comforter, if thou hast
brought thyself to be resigned to the will of