ey had passed, and had been afterwards so
hardly used by the country, though with justice too, as they had
deserved, that about Brentwood[198] or that way, several of them
perished in the fields, whether of the plague, or of mere want and
distress, they could not tell.

This was a good reason, indeed, why the people of Walthamstow should be
very cautious, and why they should resolve not to entertain anybody that
they were not well satisfied of; but as Richard the joiner, and one of
the other men who parleyed with them, told them, it was no reason why
they should block up the roads and refuse to let the people pass through
the town, and who asked nothing of them but to go through the street;
that, if their people were afraid of them, they might go into their
houses and shut their doors: they would neither show them civility nor
incivility, but go on about their business.

The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by reason, continued
obstinate, and would hearken to nothing: so the two men that talked with
them went back to their fellows to consult what was to be done. It was
very discouraging in the whole, and they knew not what to do for a good
while; but at last John, the soldier and biscuit baker, considering
awhile, "Come," says he, "leave the rest of the parley to me." He had
not appeared yet: so he sets the joiner, Richard, to work to cut some
poles out of the trees, and shape them as like guns as he could; and in
a little time he had five or six fair muskets, which at a distance would
not be known; and about the part where the lock of a gun is, he caused
them to wrap cloth and rags, such as they had, as soldiers do in wet
weather to preserve the locks of their pieces from rust; the rest was
discolored with clay or mud, such as they could get; and all this while
the rest of them sat under the trees by his direction, in two or three
bodies, where they made fires at a good distance from one another.

While this was doing, he advanced himself, and two or three with him,
and set up their tent in the lane, within sight of the barrier which the
townsmen had made, and set a sentinel just by it with the real gun, the
only one they had, and who[199] walked to and fro with the gun on his
shoulder, so as that the people of the town might see them; also he tied
the horse to a gate in the hedge just by, and got some dry sticks
together and kindled a fire on the other side of the tent, so that the
people of the town c