straw, as well for them to lodge upon as to cover and thatch their huts,
and to keep them dry. The minister of a parish not far off, not knowing
of the other, sent them also about two bushels of wheat and half a
bushel of white pease.

They were very thankful, to be sure, for this relief, and particularly
the straw was a very great comfort to them; for though the ingenious
carpenter had made them frames to lie in, like troughs, and filled them
with leaves of trees and such things as they could get, and had cut all
their tent cloth out to make coverlids, yet they lay damp and hard and
unwholesome till this straw came, which was to them like feather beds,
and, as John said, more welcome than feather beds would have been at
another time.

This gentleman and the minister having thus begun, and given an example
of charity to these wanderers, others quickly followed; and they
received every day some benevolence or other from the people, but
chiefly from the gentlemen who dwelt in the country round about. Some
sent them chairs, stools, tables, and such household things as they gave
notice they wanted. Some sent them blankets, rugs, and coverlids; some,
earthenware; and some, kitchen ware for ordering[203] their food.

Encouraged by this good usage, their carpenter, in a few days, built
them a large shed or house with rafters, and a roof in form, and an
upper floor, in which they lodged warm, for the weather began to be damp
and cold in the beginning of September; but this house being very well
thatched, and the sides and roof very thick, kept out the cold well
enough. He made also an earthen wall at one end, with a chimney in it;
and another of the company, with a vast deal of trouble and pains, made
a funnel to the chimney to carry out the smoke.

Here they lived comfortably, though coarsely, till the beginning of
September, when they had the bad news to hear, whether true or not, that
the plague, which was very hot at Waltham Abbey on the one side, and
Rumford and Brentwood on the other side, was also come to Epping, to
Woodford, and to most of the towns upon the forest; and which, as they
said, was brought down among them chiefly by the higglers,[204] and such
people as went to and from London with provisions.

If this was true, it was an evident contradiction to the report which
was afterwards spread all over England, but which, as I have said, I
cannot confirm of my own knowledge, namely, that the market people
carr