Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had a supply of victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for them, but not without, as I said, having received the money beforehand.  But now our travelers were at a great loss and difficulty how to get the horse over, the boat being small, and not fit for it, and at last could not do it without unloading the baggage and making him swim over.

From the river they traveled towards the forest; but when they came to Walthamstow, the people of that town denied[197] to admit them, as was the case everywhere; the constables and their watchmen kept them off at a distance, and parleyed with them.  They gave the same account of themselves as before; but these gave no credit to what they said, giving it for a reason, that two or three companies had already come that way and made the like pretenses, but that they had given several people the distemper in the towns where they had passed, and had been afterwards so hardly used by the country, though with justice too, as they had deserved, that about Brentwood[198] or that way, several of them perished in the fields, whether of the plague, or of mere want and distress, they could not tell.

This was a good reason, indeed, why the people of Walthamstow should be very cautious, and why they should resolve not to entertain anybody that they were not well satisfied of; but as Richard the joiner, and one of the other men who parleyed with them, told them, it was no reason why they should block up the roads and refuse to let the people pass through the town, and who asked nothing of them but to go through the street; that, if their people were afraid of them, they might go into their houses and shut their doors:  they would neither show them civility nor incivility, but go on about their business.

The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by reason, continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing:  so the two men that talked with them went back to their fellows to consult what was to be done.  It was very discouraging in the whole, and they knew not what to do for a good while; but at last John, the soldier and biscuit baker, considering awhile, “Come,” says he, “leave the rest of the parley to me.”  He had not appeared yet:  so he sets the joiner, Richard, to work to cut some poles out of the trees, and shape them as like guns as he could; and in a little time he had five or six fair muskets, which at a distance would not be known; and about the part where the lock of a gun is, he caused them to wrap cloth and rags, such as they had, as soldiers do in wet weather to preserve the locks of their pieces from rust; the rest was discolored with clay or mud, such as they could get; and all this while the rest of them sat under the trees by his direction, in two or three bodies, where they made fires at a good distance from one another.