gether; there
was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should, 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 was reported that the buriers were
so wicked as to strip them in the cart and carry them quite naked to the
ground. But as I cannot easily credit anything so vile among Christians,
and at a time so filled with terrors as that was, I can only relate it
and leave it undetermined.

Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behaviours and
practices of nurses who tended the sick, and of their hastening on the
fate of those they tended in their sickness. But I shall say more of
this in its place.

I was indeed shocked with this sight; it almost overwhelmed me, and
I went away with my heart most afflicted, and full of the afflicting
thoughts, such as I cannot describe just at my going out of the church,
and turning up the street towards my own house, I saw another cart with
links, and a bellman going before, coming out of Harrow Alley in the
Butcher Row, on the other side of the way, and being, as I perceived,
very full of dead bodies, it went directly over the street also toward
the church. I stood a while, but I had no stomach to go back again to
see the same dismal scene over again, so I went directly home, where I
could not but consider with thankfulness the risk I had run, believing I
had gotten no injury, as indeed I had not.

Here the poor unhappy gentleman's grief came into my head again, and
indeed I could not but shed tears in the reflection upon it, perhaps
more than he did himself; but his case lay so heavy upon my mind that
I could not prevail with myself, but that I must go out again into the
street, and go to the Pie Tavern, resolving to inquire what became of
him.

It was by this time one o'clock in the morning, and yet the poor
gentleman was there. The truth was, the people of the house,
knowing him, had entertained him, and kept him there all the night,
notwithstanding the danger of being infected by him, though it appeared
the man was perfectly sound himself.

It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern. The people were
civil, mannerly, and an obliging sort of folks en