Historical fiction; London (England) -- History -- 17th century -- Fiction; Plague -- Fiction
By this I not only did my duty, namely, to pray for those who
despitefully used me, but I fully tried my own heart, to my full
satisfaction that it was not filled with any spirit of resentment as
they had offended me in particular; and I humbly recommend the method to
all those that would know, or be certain, how to distinguish between
their zeal for the honor of God and the effects of their private
passions and resentment.
I remember a citizen, who, having broken out of his house in Aldersgate
Street or thereabout, went along the road to Islington. He attempted to
have gone[123] in at the Angel Inn, and after that at the White Horse,
two inns known still by the same signs, but was refused, after which he
came to the Pyed[124] Bull, an inn also still continuing the same sign.
He asked them for lodging for one night only, pretending to be going
into Lincolnshire, and assuring them of his being very sound, and free
from the infection, which also at that time had not reached much that
way.
They told him they had no lodging that they could spare but one bed up
in the garret, and that they could spare that bed but for one night,
some drovers being expected the next day with cattle: so, if he would
accept of that lodging, he might have it, which he did. So a servant was
sent up with a candle with him to show him the room. He was very well
dressed, and looked like a person not used to lie in a garret; and when
he came to the room, he fetched a deep sigh, and said to the servant, "I
have seldom lain in such a lodging as this." However, the servant
assured him again that they had no better. "Well," says he, "I must make
shift.[125] This is a dreadful time, but it is but for one night." So he
sat down upon the bedside, and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him
a pint of warm ale. Accordingly the servant went for the ale; but some
hurry in the house, which perhaps employed her other ways, put it out of
her head, and she went up no more to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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