Now, had she relieved all who professed that they were such as she sought, she might have spent the wealth of both Indies; for it was shocking how many utter reprobates pressed up to her and to Will, claiming that they were imprisoned for matters of religion; but their brazen countenances, that bore the deep impress of their wickedness, witnessed against them.  With great trouble she found out at last a few of the sort she wanted, and then began to ask for Andrew by name; but no one seemed to know aught of him; the keeper too professed ignorance of any such person.  But her belief was strong that he lay within those walls, and she went again and again on the same errand.

Now I could never get her leave to go with her to Newgate.  She said at first that Will, being a man, was more useful to her than I could be; but afterwards she owned that the prison was so vile and hideous a place she could not endure I should see it.

‘There is no need,’ she said, ’for more than one of us to behold such monstrous evil.  ’Tis a society of fiends, Lucy, a training-school for all vice, and the keeper is worthy of it.  I think it is not less than acted blasphemy to throw good men into it; as well send them alive into hell.  The Lord look upon it, and require it.’

‘Are there any of the Friends shut up there?’ I asked.

‘There have been hundreds, I am told,’ she said; ’even now there are too many, but they die daily of fever and misery;’ and she stopped short, presently saying, ’If I find him not, I will not repent of my search.  I have fed some starving saints already.’  So she continued her visits and her inquiries.

But I began to find it an almost unbearable penance to stay within doors alone in her absence; I prayed and struggled for composure, but could not attain it, and at last I said I must go out sometimes to breathe the air.  She warned me of perils awaiting me if I walked abroad by myself, but I got some poor coarse black clothes that I put on, and a hood to hide my face; and I sometimes added to these a cloth tied about my neck, such as I had seen on poor creatures who had sores.  It was an artifice, but I hope not a sinful one; for in this disguise, and contriving to behave like a sick languishing person, I was more terrible to disorderly people than they to me, and they kept at a good distance from me.  Thus I took many a walk about the streets; but my chief comfort was only to see a variety of dismal objects.  The street where we dwelt was quite grass-grown and empty; I do not think there were above two inhabited houses in it, nor would you see above half a dozen people go through it, in all the length of the summer’s day.  Of the passengers that I met elsewhere, I think two out of every three were poor sickly objects with sores and plasters upon them; and sometimes it was my luck to meet coffins of those dead of the sickness; for now there could be no strict observing of the rule to bury them by night, the number of such funerals increasing at a frightful rate.