Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/150

 John, And that which is almoſt as bad, I have but little Money to help my ſelf with neither.

Tho. ''As to that we might make ſhift; I have a little, tho’ not much; but I tell you there’s no ſtirring on the Road. I know a Couple of poor honeſt Men in our Street have attempted to travel, and at Barnet, or Whetſton, or there about, the People offered to fire at them if they pretended to go forward; ſo they are come back again quite diſcourag’d.''

John, I would have ventured their Fire, if I had been there; If I had been denied Food for my Money they ſhould ha’ ſeen me take it before their Faces; and if I had tendred Money for it, they could not have taken any Courſe with me by Law. Tho. You talk your old Soldier's Language, as if you were in the Low-Countris'' now, but this is a ſerious thing. The People have good Reaſon to keep any Body off, that they are not ſatisfied are ſound, at ſuch a Time as this; and we muſt not plunder them.'' John, No Brother, you miſtake the Caſe, and miſtake me too, I would plunder no Body; but for any Town upon the Road to deny me Leave to paſs thro’ the Town in the open High-Way, and deny me Proviſions for my Money, to ſay the Town has a Right to ſtarve me to Death, which cannot be true.

Tho. But they do not deny you Liberty to go back again from whence you came, and therefore they do not ſtarve you.

John, But the next Town behind me will by the ſame Rule deny me leave to go back, and ſo they do ſtarve me between them; beſides there is no Law to prohibit my travelling wherever I will on the Road.

Tho. But there will be ſo much Difficulty in diſputing with them at every Town on the Road, that it is not for poor Men to do it, or to undertake it at ſuch a Time as this is eſpecially.

John, ''Why Brother? Our Condition at this Rate is worſe than any Bodies elſe; for we can neither go away nor ſtay here; I am of the ſame Mind with the Lepers of Samaria, If we ſtay here we are ſure to die; I mean eſpecially, as you and I are ſtated, without a Dwelling-Houſe of our''