gone out of town on the first alarm of the sickness, leaving her house
locked up and empty, as the neighbours told us. So we went back to our
inn yet more cast down; but there we stayed not long, for we were scarce
got to our room when the landlord came to us, very angry, and said, had
he known we had been visiting an infected house, we had never come into
his; and he bade us to pack up and be gone within the hour, that he
might have every place purified where we had come. Our horses, he said,
might stand in his stable; but we saying we would remove them, he spoke
more plainly, and said he should keep them as security for what we owed.
'I will take no money from you,' he said; 'you may have the Plague in
your purses for all I know;' and he left us, saying if we went not
quickly we should be put out by force.

This brutal usage dismayed me; but Althea said, 'Poor wretch! he is half
crazed with fear; that makes mean men cruel; care not for him;' and when
we were ready, giving our packages to Will, she led the way out with a
determined aspect, having, as I soon found, embraced a strange--nay, a
desperate resolution. For Will asking her, 'Which way will ye turn now,
mistress? In _this_ street no inn will open to us, for sure;' she
replied,--

'We will not seek any inn; we will betake ourselves to our cousin's
empty house.'

'You mean not Mr. Dacre's?' I cried.

'But I do,' said she. 'We have a right to shelter there; and the door
is open.'

I exclaimed against this as a tempting of Providence, persuading her