Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/82

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
74
Memoirs of

His Diſcourſe had ſhock'd my Reſolution a little, and I ſtood wavering for a good while; but juſt at that Interval I ſaw two Links come over from the End of the Minories, and heard the Bell-man, and then appear'd a Dead-Cart, as they call'd it, coming over the Streets vo I could no longer reſiſt my Deſire of ſeeing it, and went in: There was no Body, as I could perceive at firſt, in the Church-Yard, or going into it, but the Buryers, and the Fellow that drove the Cart, or rather led the Horſe and Cart, but when they came up, to the Pit, they ſaw a Man go to and again, mufled up in a brown Cloak, and making Motions with his Hands, under his Cloak, as if he was in a great Agony; and the Buriers immediately gathered about him, ſuppoſing he was one of thoſe poor dilirious, or deſperate Creatures, that uſed to pretend, as I have ſaid, to bury themſelves; he ſaid nothing as he walk'd about, but two or three times groaned very deeply, and loud, and ſighed as he would break his Heart.

When the Buryers came up to him they ſoon found he was neither a Perſon infected and deſperate, as I have obſerved above, or a Perſon diſtempered in Mind, but one oppreſs'd with a dreadful Weight of Grief indeed, having his Wife and ſeveral of his Children, all in the Cart, that was juſt come in with him, and he followed in an Agony and exceſs of Sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was eaſy to ſee, but with a kind of Maſculine Grief, that could not give it ſelf Vent by Tears, and calmly deſiring the Buriers to let him alone, ſaid he would only ſee the Bodies thrown in, and go away, ſo they left importuning him; but no ſooner was the Cart turned round, and the Bodies ſhot into the Pit promiſcuouſly, which was a Surprize to him, for he at leaſt expected they would have been decently laid in, tho' indeed he was afterwardscon-