, and his wife in about
an hour died in his arms, where he held her dead body fast till
the morning, when the watchman came and brought the nurse as he had
promised; and coming up the stairs (for he had left the door open, or
only latched), they found the man sitting with his dead wife in his
arms, and so overwhelmed with grief that he died in a few hours after
without any sign of the infection upon him, but merely sunk under the
weight of his grief.

I have heard also of some who, on the death of their relations, have
grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one, in particular,
who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon his spirits that
by degrees his head sank into his body, so between his shoulders
that the crown of his head was very little seen above the bone of his
shoulders; and by degrees losing both voice and sense, his face,
looking forward, lay against his collarbone and could not be kept up any
otherwise, unless held up by the hands of other people; and the poor
man never came to himself again, but languished near a year in that
condition, and died. Nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes or to
look upon any particular object.

I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such passages
as these, because it was not possible to come at the particulars, where
sometimes the whole families where such things happened were carried off
by the distemper. But there were innumerable cases of this kind which
presented to the eye and the ear, even in passing along the streets, as
I have hinted above. Nor is it easy to give any story of this or that
family which there was not divers parallel stories to be met with of the
same kind.

But as I am now talking of the time when the plague raged at the
easternmost part of the town--how for a long time the people of those
parts had flattered themselves that they should escape, and how they
were surprised when it came upon them as it did; for, indeed, it came
upon them like an armed man when it did come;--I say, this brings
me back to the three poor men who wandered from Wapping, not knowing
whither to go or what to do, and whom I mentioned before; one a
biscuit-baker, one a sailmaker, and the other a joiner, all of Wapping,
or there-abouts.

The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was such
that they not only did not shift for themselves as others did, but they
boasted of being safe, and of safety being with them; and