But Coltishall is barely five miles from Norwich, and from the
villages round the great city the _villeins_ were always running
away in the hopes of getting their freedom if they could keep in
hiding within the city walls for a year and a day. Oh, ye seven, had
the yellow primrose less charm for you, and the barley loaves that
were sure for you in breezy Coltishall--gritty though they might be--
less charm than the garbage that might be picked up in Norwich, in
its noisome alleys reeking with corruption, and all that flesh and
blood revolts from? Ah! but to be free--to be free! How that thought
made their poor hearts throb!
That there was panic--mad, unreasoning, insensate panic--elsewhere
than in the country villages there is abundant evidence to prove, but
it was among the well-to-do classes--the traders and the moneyed men,
_bourgeoisie_ of the towns--that a stampede prevailed. Any one
who chooses may satisfy himself of this by looking into Rymer's
_Faedera,_ to go no further.
* * * * * * *
Enough has been told in the foregoing pages to illustrate the
overwhelming violence with which the Great Plague ran its career in
East Anglia. Only a small part of the evidence still ready to our
hands has been examined; but if no more were scrutinized, the
impression left upon us of the severity of the visitation would be
quite sufficiently appalling.
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