History of the Plague in London

by Daniel Defoe

said, but he went backward two or three steps, and felldown in a swoon. The buriers ran to him and took him up, and in a littlewhile 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 wentaway; but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately withthrowing in earth, that, though there was light enough (for there werelanterns,[117] and candles in them, placed all night round the sides ofthe pit upon the heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more), yetnothing could be seen.

  This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as therest. But the other was awful, and full of terror: the cart had in itsixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapped up in linen sheets, somein rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose that what coveringthey had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fellquite naked among the rest; but the matter was not much to them, or theindecency much to any one else, seeing they were all dead, and were tobe 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. Therewas 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 insuch a calamity as this.

  It was reported, by way of scandal upon the buriers, that if any corpsewas delivered to them decently wound up, as we called it then, in awinding sheet tied over the head and feet (which some did, and which wasgenerally of good linen),--I say, it was reported that the buriers wereso wicked as to strip them in the cart, and carry them quite naked tothe ground; but as I cannot 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 behavior and practiceof nurses who attended the sick, and of their hastening on the fate ofthose they attended in their sickness. But I shall say more of this inits place.

  I was indeed shocked with this sight, it almost overwhelmed me; and Iwent away with my heart most afflicted, and full of afflicting thoughtssuch as I cannot describe. Just at my going out of the church, andturning up the street towards my own house, I saw another cart, withlinks, and a bellman going before, coming out of Harrow Alley, in theButcher 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,towards the church. I stood a while, but I had no stomach[119] to goback again to see the same dismal scene over again: so I went directlyhome, where I could not but consider with thankfulness the risk I hadrun, believing I had gotten no injury, as indeed I had not.

  Here the poor unhappy gentleman's grief came into my head again, andindeed I could not but shed tears in the reflection upon it, perhapsmore than he did himself; but his case lay so heavy upon my mind, that Icould not prevail with myself but that I must go out again into thestreet, and go to the Pye Tavern, resolving to inquire what became ofhim.

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

  It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern. The people werecivil, mannerly, and an obliging sort of folks enough, and had till thistime kept their house open, and their trade going on, though not so verypublicly as formerly. But there was a dreadful set of fellows that usedtheir house, and who, in the middle of all this horror, met there everynight, behaving with all the reveling and roaring extravagances as isusual for such people to do at other times, and indeed to such anoffensive degree that the very master and mistress of the house grewfirst ashamed, and then terrified, at them.

  They sat generally in a room next the street; and as they always keptlate hours, so when the dead cart came across the street end to go intoHoundsditch, which was in view of the tavern windows, they wouldfrequently open the windows as soon as they heard the bell, and look outat them; and as they might often hear sad lamentations of people in thestreets, or at their windows, as the carts went along, they would maketheir impudent mocks and jeers at them, especially if they heard thepoor people call upon God to have mercy upon them, as many would do atthose times, in their ordinary passing along the streets.

  These gentlemen, being something disturbed with the clutter of bringingthe poor gentleman into the house, as above, were first angry and veryhigh with the master of the house for suffering such a fellow, as theycalled him, to be brought out of the grave into their house; but beinganswered that the man was a neighbor, and that he was sound, butoverwhelmed with the calamity of his family, and the like, they turnedtheir anger into ridiculing the man and his sorrow for his wife andchildren, taunting him with want of courage to leap into the great pit,and go to heaven, as they jeeringly expressed it, along with them;adding some very profane and even blasphemous expressions.

  They were at this vile work when I came back to the house; and as far asI could see, though the man sat still, mute and disconsolate, and theiraffronts could not divert his sorrow, yet he was both grieved andoffended at their discourse. Upon this, I gently reproved them, beingwell enough acquainted with their characters, and not unknown in personto two of them.

  They immediately fell upon me with ill language and oaths, asked mewhat I did out of my grave at such a time, when so many honester menwere carried into the churchyard, and why I was not at home saying myprayers, against[120] the dead cart came for me, and the like.

  I was indeed astonished at the impudence of the men, though not at alldiscomposed at their treatment of me: however, I kept my temper. I toldthem that though I defied them, or any man in the world, to tax me withany dishonesty, yet I acknowledged, that, in this terrible judgment ofGod, many better than I were swept away, and carried to their grave;but, to answer their question directly, the case was, that I wasmercifully preserved by that great God whose name they had blasphemedand taken in vain by cursing and swearing in a dreadful manner; and thatI believed I was preserved in particular, among other ends of hisgoodness, that I might reprove them for their audacious boldness inbehaving in such a manner, and in such an awful time as this was,especially for their jeering and mocking at an honest gentleman and aneighbor, for some of them knew him, who they saw was overwhelmed withsorrow for the breaches which it had pleased God to make upon hisfamily.

  I cannot call exactly to mind the hellish, abominable raillery which wasthe return they made to that talk of mine, being provoked, it seems,that I was not at all afraid to be free with them; nor, if I couldremember, would I fill my account with any of the words, the horridoaths, curses, and vile expressions such as, at that time of the day,even the worst and ordinariest people in the street would not use: for,except such hardened creatures as these, the most wicked wretches thatcould be found had at that time some terror upon their mind of the handof that Power which could thus in a moment destroy them.

  But that which was the worst in all their devilish language was, thatthey were not afraid to blaspheme God and talk atheistically, making ajest at my calling the plague the hand of God, mocking, and evenlaughing at the word "judgment," as if the providence of God had noconcern in the inflicting such a desolating stroke; and that the peoplecalling upon God, as they saw the carts carrying away the dead bodies,was all enthusiastic, absurd, and impertinent.

  I made them some reply, such as I thought proper, but which I found wasso far from putting a check to their horrid way of speaking, that itmade them rail the more: so that I confess it filled me with horror anda kind of rage; and I came away, as I told them, lest the hand of thatJudgment which had visited the whole city should glorify his vengeanceupon them and all that were near them.

  They received all reproof with the utmost contempt, and made thegreatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving me allthe opprobrious insolent scoffs that they could
think of for preachingto them, as they called it, which, indeed, grieved me rather thanangered me; and I went away, blessing God, however, in my mind, that Ihad not spared them, though they had insulted me so much.

  They continued this wretched course three or four days after this,continually mocking and jeering at all that showed themselves religiousor serious, or that were any way touched with the sense of the terriblejudgment of God upon us; and I was informed they flouted in the samemanner at the good people, who, notwithstanding the contagion, met atthe church, fasted, and prayed to God to remove his hand from them.

  I say they continued this dreadful course three or four days (I think itwas no more), when one of them, particularly he who asked the poorgentleman what he did out of his grave, was struck from Heaven with theplague, and died in a most deplorable manner; and, in a word, they wereevery one of them carried into the great pit, which I have mentionedabove, before it was quite filled up, which was not above a fortnight