nger of death. And all
carried rue and wormwood in their hands, and myrrh and zedoary in their
mouths, as protection against infection. Now were the faces of all pale
with apprehension, none knowing when the fatal malady might carry them
hence; and moreover sad, as became those who stand in the presence of
death.

And such sights were to be witnessed day after day as made the heart
sick. "It would be endless," says the Rev. Thomas Vincent, "to speak
what we have seen and heard; of some, in their frenzy, rising out of
their beds and leaping about their rooms; others crying and roaring
at their windows; some coming forth almost naked and running into the
streets; strange things have others spoken and done when the disease was
upon them: but it was very sad to hear of one, who being sick alone,
and it is like frantic, burnt himself in his bed. And amongst other
sad spectacles methought two were very affecting: one of a woman coming
alone and weeping by the door where I lived, with a little coffin under
her arm, carrying it to the new churchyard. I did judge that it was the
mother of the child, and that all the family besides was dead, and she
was forced to coffin up and bury with her own hands this her last dead
child. Another was of a man at the corner of the Artillery Wall, that
as I judge, through the dizziness of his head with the disease, which
seized upon him there, had dashed his face against the wall; and when I
came by he lay hanging with his bloody face over the rails, and bleeding
upon the ground; within half an hour he died in that place."

And as the pestilence increased, it was found impossible to provide
coffins or even separate graves for those who perished. And therefore,
in order to bury the deceased, great carts passed through the streets
after sunset, attended by linkmen and preceded by a bellman crying in
weird and solemn tones, "Bring out your dead." At the intimation of the
watchmen stationed before houses bearing red crosses upon their
doors, the sad procession would tarry, When coffinless, and oftentimes
shroudless, rigid, loathsome, and malodorous bodies were hustled into
the carts with all possible speed. Then once more the melancholy cortege
took its way adown the dark, deserted street, the yellow glare of links
falling on the ghastly burden they accompanied, the dirge-like call of
the bellman sounding on the ears of the living like a summons from
the dead. And so, receiving additional freight