be obliged to hold it but three
weeks, on condition nevertheless that I could then get some other
sufficient housekeeper to serve the rest of the time for me--which was,
in short, but a very small favour, it being very difficult to get any
man to accept of such an employment, that was fit to be entrusted with
it.

It is true that shutting up of houses had one effect, which I am
sensible was of moment, namely, it confined the distempered people, who
would otherwise have been both very troublesome and very dangerous in
their running about streets with the distemper upon them--which, when
they were delirious, they would have done in a most frightful manner,
and as indeed they began to do at first very much, till they were thus
restrained; nay, so very open they were that the poor would go about and
beg at people's doors, and say they had the plague upon them, and
beg rags for their sores, or both, or anything that delirious nature
happened to think of.

A poor, unhappy gentlewoman, a substantial citizen's wife, was (if the
story be true) murdered by one of these creatures in Aldersgate Street,
or that way. He was going along the street, raving mad to be sure, and
singing; the people only said he was drunk, but he himself said he
had the plague upon him, which it seems was true; and meeting this
gentlewoman, he would kiss her. She was terribly frighted, as he was
only a rude fellow, and she ran from him, but the street being very thin
of people, there was nobody near enough to help her. When she saw he
would overtake her, she turned and gave him a thrust so forcibly, he
being but weak, and pushed him down backward. But very unhappily, she
being so near, he caught hold of her and pulled her down also, and
getting up first, mastered her and kissed her; and which was worst of
all, when he had done, told her he had the plague, and why should not
she have it as well as he? She was frighted enough before, being also
young with child; but when she heard him say he had the plague, she
screamed out and fell down into a swoon, or in a fit, which, though she
recovered a little, yet killed her in a very few days; and I never heard
whether she had the plague or no.

Another infected person came and knocked at the door of a citizen's
house where they knew him very well; the servant let him in, and being
told the master of the house was above, he ran up and came into the
room to them as the whole family was at supper. They began to ris