When the master's away...

The Year 1625 now comes on, and the Plague exceeding violent ... the Visitation increasing, and my Master having a great Charge of Money and Plate, some of his own, some other Men's, left me and a Fellow-Servant to keep the House, and himself in June went into Leicestershire. He was in that Year Feoffee Collector for twelve poor Alms-people living in Clement Danes Church-yard; whose Pensions I in his Absence paid weekly, to his and the Parish's great Satisfaction. My Master was no sooner gone down, but I bought a Base-viol, and got a Master to instruct me; the intervals of Time I spent in Bowling in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, with Wat the Cobler, Dick the Blacksmith, and such like Companions: we have sometimes been at our Work at six in the Morning, and so continued till three or four in the Afternoon, many times without Bread or Drink all that while. Sometimes I went to Church and heard Funeral-Sermons, of which there was then great Plenty. At other times I went early to St. Antholine's in London, where there was every Morning a Sermon.

from History of His Life and Times (2nd edn, 1715) by William Lilly (1602–1681)