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And one cause was this: The magistrates of Ayr, forasmuch as this town alone was free, and the country about infected, thought fit to guard the ports with sentinels, and watchmen; and one day two travelling merchants, each with a pack of cloth upon a horse, came to the town desiring entrance that they might sell their goods producing a pass from the magistrates of the town whence they came, which was at that time sound and free; yet notwithstanding all this the sentinels stopt them till the magistrates were called; and when they came, they would do nothing without their minister's advice: so Mr. Welch was called, and his opinion asked; he demurred, and putting off his hat with his eyes toward heaven for a pretty space, though he uttered no audible words, yet continued in a praying gesture: and after a little space told the magistrates they would do well to discharge these travellers their town, affirming with great asseveration, the plague was in their packs, so the magistrates commanded them to be gone, and they went to Cumnock, a town some twenty miles distant, and there sold their goods, which kindled such an infection in that place, that the living were hardly able to bury their dead. This made the people begin to think Mr. Welch as an oracle. Yet as he walked with God, and kept close with him, so he forgot not man, for he used frequently to dine abroad with such of his friends, as he thought were persons with whom he might maintain the communion of the saints; and once in the year he used always to invite all his familiars in the town to a treat in his house, where there was a banquet of holiness and sobriety.
And now the scene of his life begins for to alter;
