g been infected and past recovery, the rest had
left her to die by herself, and were 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 the 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.

Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as particularly when
the watchman was sent of some errand; for it was his business to go of
any errand that the family sent him of; that is to say, for necessaries,
such as food and physic; to fetch physicians, if they would come, or
surgeons, or nurses, or to order the dead-cart, and the like; but with
this condition, too, that when he went he was to lock up the outer door
of the house and take the key away with him, To evade this, and cheat
the watchmen, people got two or three keys made to their locks, or they
found ways to unscrew the locks such as were screwed on, and so take off
the lock, being in the inside of the house, and while they sent away the
watchman to the market, to the bakehouse, or for one trifle or another,
open the door and go out as often as they pleased. But this being found
out, the officers afterwards had orders to padlock up the doors on the
outside, and place bolts on them as they thought fit.

At another house, as I was informed, in the street next within Aldgate,
a whole family was shut up and locked in because the maid-servant 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 pest-house, 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 to be 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