hat it would be enough to
make the name of an Epping man hateful throughout all the city, and to
have the rabble stone them in the very streets whenever they came so
much as to market; that they were not yet secure from being visited
themselves, and that, as he heard, Waltham was already; that they would
think it very hard, that, when any of them fled for fear before they
were touched, they should be denied the liberty of lying so much as in
the open fields.

The Epping men told them again that they, indeed, said they were sound,
and free from the infection, but that they had no assurance of it; and
that it was reported that there had been a great rabble of people at
Walthamstow, who made such pretenses of being sound as they did, but
that they threatened to plunder the town, and force their way, whether
the parish officers would or no; that there were near two hundred of
them, and had arms and tents like Low Country soldiers; that they
extorted provisions from the town by threatening them with living upon
them at free quarter,[202] showing their arms, and talking in the
language of soldiers; and that several of them having gone away towards
Rumford and Brentwood, the country had been infected by them, and the
plague spread into both those large towns, so that the people durst not
go to market there, as usual; that it was very likely they were some of
that party, and, if so, they deserved to be sent to the county jail, and
be secured till they had made satisfaction for the damage they had done,
and for the terror and fright they had put the country into.

John answered, that what other people had done was nothing to them; that
they assured them they were all of one company; that they had never been
more in number than they saw them at that time (which, by the way, was
very true); that they came out in two separate companies, but joined by
the way, their cases being the same; that they were ready to give what
account of themselves anybody desired of them, and to give in their
names and places of abode, that so they might be called to an account
for any disorder that they might be guilty of; that the townsmen might
see they were content to live hardly, and only desired a little room to
breathe in on the forest, where it was wholesome (for where it was not,
they could not stay, and would decamp if they found it otherwise there).

"But," said the townsmen, "we have a great charge of poor upon our hands
already, and we mus