I
was for going to my house in Spitalfields, he would go to his
parish in Sussex; but the plague was broke out and spreading
through Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Hampshire, and he was so mad
distracted to think that it might even then be among his folk at
home that I bore him company. He had comforted me in my
distress. I could not have done less; and I remembered that I had a
cousin at Great Wigsell, near by Jack's parish. Thus we footed it
from Oxford, cassock and buff coat together, resolute to leave
wars on the left side henceforth; and either through our mean
appearances, or the plague making men less cruel, we were not
hindered. To be sure, they put us in the stocks one half-day for
rogues and vagabonds at a village under St Leonard's forest,
where, as I have heard, nightingales never sing; but the constable
very honestly gave me back my Astrological Almanac, which I
carry with me.' Mr Culpeper tapped his thin chest. 'I dressed a
whitlow on his thumb. So we went forward.
'Not to trouble you with impertinences, we fetched over
against Jack Marget's parish in a storm of rain about the day's end.
Here our roads divided, for I would have gone on to my cousin at
Great Wigsell, but while Jack was pointing me out his steeple, we
saw a man lying drunk, as he conceived, athwart the road.
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