The master gave liberally to each of his servants according to their past service, and promised that if he should escape the pestilence, and continue his business in more prosperous times, he would take them back into his house again.

For the present, however, it seemed good to him that only his own family should remain with him.  His wife and three daughters could well manage the house, and he did not desire that any other person should be imperilled through the course of action he himself intended to take.

When he took boat with his apprentices, he offered to Joseph to accompany his companions and remain under the charge of the farmer and his wife at Greenwich; but the boy begged so earnestly to remain at home with the rest, that he was permitted to do so.  Truth to tell, Joseph was more fascinated than alarmed by the thought of the advance of the dreaded plague, and was by no means anxious to be taken away from the city when all the world was saying that such strange things would be seen ere long.  The lad felt so safe beneath the care of wise and loving parents, that he would never of his own will consent to leave them.

The moment the party had started by boat, the shop being that day shut for the first time, albeit for some days nothing had been stirring in the way of custom—­Joseph darted away down a network of alleys hard by in search of his younger brother Benjamin, who was apprenticed to a carpenter in Lad Lane, off Wood Street, and therefore much nearer to the infected parishes than the house on the bridge.  Benjamin was sure to know the latest news as to the spread of the pestilence.  Joseph was of opinion that it was all rather fine fun, especially since it seemed like to get him a spell of unwonted holiday.

Already as he passed through the streets he noted a great many empty and shut-up houses.  Men were going about with grave and anxious faces.  Often they would look askance at some passerby who might be walking a little feebly or unsteadily, and once Joseph saw a man some fifty paces in advance of him stagger and fall to the ground with a lamentable cry.

Instead of flying to his assistance, all who saw him fled in terror, crying one to the other, “It is the pestilence!  Send for the watch to get him away!”

And presently there came two men who lifted him up and carried him away, but whether he was then alive or dead the boy did not know, and a great awe fell upon him; for he had never seen such a thing before, and could not understand how death could come so suddenly.

“Is it always so with them?” he asked of a woman who was craning her head out of a window to see where the bearers were taking him.