And turning to the women, “Forsooth,” said I, “what are you doing here?” and seized upon the hats, and took them from them.  One of them, who, I confess, did not look like a thief, “Indeed,” says she, “we are wrong; but we were told they were goods that had no owner:  be pleased to take them again.  And look yonder:  there are more such customers as we.”  She cried, and looked pitifully:  so I took the hats from her, and opened the gate, and bade them begone, for I pitied the women indeed.  But when I looked towards the warehouse, as she directed, there were six or seven more, all women, fitting themselves with hats, as unconcerned and quiet as if they had been at a hatter’s shop buying for their money.

I was surprised, not at the sight of so many thieves only, but at the circumstances I was in; being now to thrust myself in among so many people, who for some weeks I had been so shy of myself, that, if I met anybody in the street, I would cross the way from them.

They were equally surprised, though on another account.  They all told me they were neighbors; that they had heard any one might take them; that they were nobody’s goods; and the like.  I talked big to them at first; went back to the gate and took out the key, so that they were all my prisoners; threatened to lock them all into the warehouse, and go and fetch my lord mayor’s officers for them.

They begged heartily, protested they found the gate open, and the warehouse door open, and that it had no doubt been broken open by some who expected to find goods of greater value; which indeed was reasonable to believe, because the lock was broke, and a padlock that hung to the door on the outside also loose, and not abundance of the hats carried away.

At length I considered that this was not a time to be cruel and rigorous; and besides that, it would necessarily oblige me to go much about, to have several people come to me, and I go to several, whose circumstances of health I knew nothing of; and that, even at this time, the plague was so high as that there died four thousand a week; so that, in showing my resentment, or even in seeking justice for my brother’s goods, I might lose my own life.  So I contented myself with taking the names and places where some of them lived, who were really inhabitants in the neighborhood, and threatening that my brother should call them to an account for it when he returned to his habitation.

Then I talked a little upon another footing with them, and asked them how they could do such things as these in a time of such general calamity, and, as it were, in the face of God’s most dreadful judgments, when the plague was at their very doors, and, it may be, in their very houses, and they did not know but that the dead cart might stop at their doors in a few hours, to carry them to their graves.

I could not perceive that my discourse made much impression upon them all that while, till it happened that there came two men of the neighborhood, hearing of the disturbance, and knowing my brother (for they had been both dependents upon his family), and they came to my assistance.  These being, as I said, neighbors, presently knew three of the women, and told me who they were, and where they lived, and it seems they had given me a true account of themselves before.