e all dead, the man and his wife and five children. There," says he,
"they are shut up; you see a watchman at the door:" and so of other
houses. "Why," says I, "what do you here all alone?"--"Why," says he, "I
am a poor desolate man: it hath pleased God I am not yet visited, though
my family is, and one of my children dead."--"How do you mean, then,"
said I, "that you are not visited?"--"Why," says he, "that is my house,"
pointing to a very little low boarded house, "and there my poor wife and
two children live," said he, "if they may be said to live; for my wife
and one of the children are visited; but I do not come at them." And
with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face; and
so they did down mine too, I assure you.

"But," said I, "why do you not come at them? How can you abandon your
own flesh and blood?"--"O sir!" says he, "the Lord forbid! I do not
abandon them, I work for them as much as I am able; and, blessed be the
Lord! I keep them from want." And with that I observed he lifted up his
eyes to heaven with a countenance that presently told me I had happened
on a man that was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and
his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness, that, in such a
condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not
want. "Well," says I, "honest man, that is a great mercy, as things go
now with the poor. But how do you live, then, and how are you kept from
the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?"--"Why, sir," says he, "I
am a waterman, and there is my boat," says he, "and the boat serves me
for a house; I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night:
and what I get I lay it down upon that stone," says he, showing me a
broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house;
"and then," says he, "I halloo and call to them till I make them hear,
and they come and fetch it."

"Well, friend," says I, "but how can you get money as a waterman? Does
anybody go by water these times?"--"Yes, sir," says he, "in the way I am
employed there does. Do you see there," says he, "five ships lie at
anchor?" pointing down the river a good way below the town; "and do you
see," says he, "eight or ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor
yonder?" pointing above the town. "All those ships have families on
board, of their merchants and owners, and such like, who have locked
themselves up and live on board, close shut in, for fear