everal 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 itself 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 surprise to him, for he at least expected
they would have been decently laid in, though, indeed, he was afterwards
convinced that was impracticable,--I say, no sooner did he see the
sight, but he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could not
hear what he said, but he went backward two or three steps, and fell
down in a swoon. The buriers ran to him and took him up, and in a little
while he came to himself, and they led him away to the Pye[116] Tavern,
over against the end of Houndsditch, where, it seems, the man was known,
and where they took care of him. He looked into the pit again as he went
away; but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately with
throwing in earth, that, though there was light enough (for there were
lanterns,[117] and candles in them, placed all night round the sides of
the pit upon the heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more), yet
nothing could be seen.

This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as the
rest. But the other was awful, and full of terror: the cart had in it
sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapped up in linen sheets, some
in rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering
they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell
quite naked among the rest; but the matter was not much to them, or the
indecency much to any one else, seeing they were all dead, and were to
be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it;
for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together. There
was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should,[118]
for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell in
such a calamity as this.

It was reported, by way of scandal upon the buriers, that if any corpse
was delivered to them decently wound up, as we called it then, in a
winding sheet tied over the head and feet (which some did, and which was
generally of good linen),--I say, it w