and was now come to relieve
him. All this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had
been seen, they called for nothing, sent him of no errands (which used
to be the chief business of the watchmen), neither had they given him
any disturbance, as he said, from Monday afternoon, when he heard a
great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed, was
occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time. It seems the
night before, the "dead cart," as it was called, had been stopped there,
and a servant maid had been brought down to the door dead; and the
"buriers" or "bearers," as they were called, put her into the cart,
wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise
and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one
looked out and said with an angry, quick tone, and yet a kind of crying
voice, or a voice of one that was crying, "What d'ye want, that you make
such a knocking?" He answered, "I am the watchman. How do you do? What
is the matter?" The person answered, "What is that to you? Stop the dead
cart." This, it seems, was about one o'clock. Soon after, as the fellow
said, he stopped the dead cart, and then knocked again, but nobody
answered; he continued knocking, and the bellman called out several
times, "Bring out your dead;" but nobody answered, till the man that
drove the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and
drove away.

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone
till the morning man, or "day watchman," as they called him, came to
relieve him. Giving him an account of the particulars, they knocked at
the door a great while, but nobody answered; and they observed that the
window or casement at which the person looked out who had answered
before, continued open, being up two pair of stairs.

Upon this, the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder,
and one of them went up to the window and looked into the room, where he
saw a woman lying dead upon the floor, in a dismal manner, having no
clothes on her but her shift.[97] But though he called aloud, and,
putting in his long staff, knocked hard on the floor, yet nobody stirred
or answered, neither could he hear any noise in the house.

He came down again upon this, and acquainted his fellow, who went up
also; and finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint either the lord