me, they moved towards the marshes
on the side of Waltham. But here they found a man who, it seems, kept
a weir or stop upon the river, made to raise the water for the barges
which go up and down the river, and he terrified them with dismal
stories of the sickness having been spread into all the towns on the
river and near the river, on the side of Middlesex and Hertfordshire;
that is to say, into Waltham, Waltham Cross, Enfield, and Ware, and all
the towns on the road, that they were afraid to go that way; though it
seems the man imposed upon them, for that the thing was not really true.

However, it terrified them, and they resolved to move across the forest
towards Rumford and Brentwood; but they heard that there were numbers
of people fled out of London that way, who lay up and down in the
forest called Henalt Forest, reaching near Rumford, and who, having
no subsistence or habitation, not only lived oddly and suffered great
extremities in the woods and fields for want of relief, but were said
to be made so desperate by those extremities as that they offered many
violences to the county robbed and plundered, and killed cattle, and the
like; that others, building huts and hovels by the roadside, begged,
and that with an importunity next door to demanding relief; so that the
county was very uneasy, and had been obliged to take some of them up.

This in the first place intimated to them, that they would be sure to
find the charity and kindness of the county, which they had found here
where they were before, hardened and shut up against them; and that, on
the other hand, they would be questioned wherever they came, and would
be in danger of violence from others in like cases as themselves.

Upon all these considerations John, their captain, in all their names,
went back to their good friend and benefactor, who had relieved them
before, and laying their case truly before him, humbly asked his advice;
and he as kindly advised them to take up their old quarters again, or if
not, to remove but a little farther out of the road, and directed them
to a proper place for them; and as they really wanted some house rather
than huts to shelter them at that time of the year, it growing on
towards Michaelmas, they found an old decayed house which had been
formerly some cottage or little habitation but was so out of repair
as scarce habitable; and by the consent of a farmer to whose farm it
belonged, they got leave to make what use o