ing out
or coming in, she chose to steal forth of the back door early in the
mornings; sometimes I with her, sometimes Will, but one of us always
staying in the house to watch it, and to open at nightfall to the
others. Althea went to such shops as she could find open and bought
things, sometimes mere trifles, sometimes food and other necessaries,
but always spending much time over it, and both listening to the talk of
other folk, and drawing the shop-people into talk herself; when she
contrived to work round to the prisons, and the poor souls in them, and
how they fared in these bad times. Once or twice she took a boat and
went up the river, and then was wondrous affable to the watermen,
setting them talking also on the same matters; and thus she did with
every one whom she could draw to speak with her, not disdaining even
beggars, nor fearing the watchmen who guarded houses supposed to be
infected, and therefore shut up. I confess that these last were people I
would gladly have shunned, there being something so awful to me in the
locked doors (marked with a great red cross, and 'Lord, have mercy on
us' writ large upon them) by which the poor fellows sat. But Althea
seemed to have said a long good-bye to fear. And with questioning and
listening, and piecing things together by little and little, she assured
herself that Andrew must be in Newgate, if he lay in any London prison.
She had tried to find out by artful inquiries if any man had shown
himself in London, announcing a coming judgment, and warning people to
avoid it, as Andrew had proposed to do; on which people informed her of
several such persons, but their descriptions answered not to our poor
friend.

One man had cried up and down the streets, 'Yet forty days, and London
shall be destroyed,' after the fashion of the prophet Jonah; and another
had run about by day and by night, naked to the waist, and crying, 'Oh!
the great and dreadful God!' and no other words; which struck a great
terror into all who saw and heard him; and yet a third, who was said to
be a Quaker, acted more strangely; but he was known by name to those who
told about him. Also in all these tales there was something frantic and
unreasonable, not like Andrew, nor like the way he had designed to act.

I think I myself saw one of these strange creatures. It was my turn to
be housekeeper, Althea wanting Will's help to carry her purchases home
that day. Such a solitary day was very dismal and hear