down an order from the Court that the school be shut. And this was done on the seventeenth of May, 1636. I remember that we heard this news with a great shout of joy; for boys would rejoice in holiday though it should be brought about by the ending of the world; and now there was prospect of such a holiday as never had been known; and indeed the scholars were not again assembled together for the space of a year and five months, though Mr. Edwards, the chief master, taught some boys during that whole time, lest the school altogether ceasing to be, its property should be diverted elsewhere. But I was too young to be one of these. As for myself, there was no small questioning what had better be done with me. My father indeed, as soon as there was talk of the school being shut up, had sent word that I should come home to him. But this was not easy to be done. For there was great fear throughout the country lest travellers from London should bring the infection of the disease with them, so that the roads were diligently watched, and all that were suspected of hailing thence were forthwith sent back, sometimes not without much maltreatment. This being so the river was the only highway that was left open. On this travellers were not hindered, provided only that they did not go forth from their boat into the villages round about. And by this highway I did in the end return home. On the eleventh of June, for I remember that it was election day at the school, though the customary festivities were intermitted by reason of the plague, comes Richard Beasley with his barge, having with him a load of timber, and what I counted of more worth by far, the commandment from my father that I should return with him. And this I did about a sennight after, when he had finished the unloading of his cargo. We were six days on our journey, and I think that I never had so delightful a time. First it was no small joy to be quit for a time of London, which was indeed in those days a most dreadful place. None were seen in the streets save such as had urgent business; and these walked at such speed as if death were after them, (as indeed in a sense it was,) holding a handkerchief or pomander with some scent, recommended by the faculty, to their noses, as a safeguard against infection. As for the gallants in their brave attire and the fair matrons and damsels that had been wont to throng the public ways, they were invisible, and the church bells never gave forth a merry peal, but were tolling continually, till indeed this was forbidden as augmenting the terror of the citizens. And there passed continually along the streets the funerals of the wealthier sort of people and their families. But as for the poorer, the dead-cart carried them to their burying places, and this I, lying awake at night, have often heard rumbling awfully along, and also the cry of the men asking, whenever they saw a house shut up, whether there was anything for them.