. I cannot say
that the officers suffered any willingly to lie there; but I have heard
that in a great pit in Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate, it lying
open then to the fields, for it was not then walled about, [many] came
and threw themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any earth
upon them; and that when they came to bury others and found them there,
they were quite dead, though not cold.

This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of that day,
though it is impossible to say anything that is able to give a true idea
of it to those who did not see it, other than this, that it was indeed
very, very, very dreadful, and such as no tongue can express.

I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the sexton
who attended; who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet earnestly
persuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously (for he was a good,
religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed their business and duty
to venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to be
preserved; but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity,
which, he said, he believed I would not pretend was sufficient to
justify my running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mind
to go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight, that might not
be without its uses. 'Nay,' says the good man, 'if you will venture upon
that score, name of God go in; for, depend upon it, 'twill be a sermon
to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in your life. 'Tis a
speaking sight,' says he, 'and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to
call us all to repentance'; and with that he opened the door and said,
'Go, if you will.'

His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood wavering
for a good while, but just at that interval I saw two links come over
from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and then appeared
a dead-cart, as they called it, coming over the streets; so I could no
longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There was nobody, as
I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, or going into it, but the
buriers and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather led the horse and
cart; but when they came up to the pit they saw a man go to and again,
muffled up in a brown Cloak, and making motions with his hands under his
cloak, as if he was in great agony, and the buriers immediately gathered
about him, supposing he was one of th