satisfy my curiosity in
that point, I turned away over the fields from Bow to Bromley, and down
to Blackwall to the stairs which are there for landing or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or sea-wall, as they call it,
by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the houses all shut up.
At last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man; first
I asked him how people did thereabouts. 'Alas, sir!' says he, 'almost
desolate; all dead or sick. Here are very few families in this part, or
in that village' (pointing at Poplar), 'where half of them are not dead
already, and the rest sick.' Then he pointing to one house, 'There they
are all dead', said he, 'and the house stands open; nobody dares go into
it. A poor thief', says he, 'ventured in to steal something, but he
paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard too last
night.' Then he pointed to several other houses. 'There', says he, 'they
are all dead, the man and his wife, and five children. There', says
he, 'they are shut up; you see a watchman at the door'; and so of other
houses. 'Why,' says I, 'what do you here all alone?' 'Why,' says he, 'I
am a poor, desolate man; it has pleased God I am not yet visited, though
my family is, and one of my children dead.' 'How do you mean, then,'
said I, 'that you are not visited?' 'Why,' says he, 'that's my house'
(pointing to a very little, low-boarded house), 'and there my poor wife
and two children live,' said he, 'if they may be said to live, for my
wife and one of the children are visited, but I do not come at them.'
And with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face;
and so they did down mine too, I assure you.

'But,' said I, 'why do you not come at them? How can you abandon your
own flesh and blood?' 'Oh, sir,' says he, 'the Lord forbid! I do not
abandon them; I work for them as much as I am able; and, blessed be the
Lord, I keep them from want'; and with that I observed he lifted up his
eyes to heaven, with a countenance that presently told me I had happened
on a man that was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man,
and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness that, in such
a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not
want. 'Well,' says I, 'honest man, that is a great mercy as things go
now with the poor. But how do you live, then, and how are you kept from
the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?'