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Updated: June 19, 2025
They immediately fell upon me with ill language and oaths: asked me what I did out of my grave at such a time when so many honester men were carried into the church-yard? and why I was not at home saying my prayers till the dead-cart came for me? I was indeed astonished at the impudence of the men, though not at all discomposed at their treatment of me. However, I kept my temper.
The great black eyes turned wildly upon him, while a fierce spasm convulsed the beautiful face. "O, my God, I remember! I have the plague!" And, with a prolonged shriek of anguish, that thrilled even to the hardened heart of the dead-cart driver, the girl fell back senseless again.
I daresay the other soldier was tired, lazy fellow! and got into the omnibus with the others they'll all get out at the same big hole." "Head foremost, you know." "Yes, they pitch them head first into a bed of lime." "Why, one might follow the dead-cart blind-fold, and no mistake. It's worse than Montfaucon knacker-yards!"
For hot and narrow thoroughfares reeking with pestilential effluvia, resounding with frightful shrieks, or piteous cries, and bearing on every side marks of the destructive progress of the scourge for these terrible sights and sounds for the charnel horrors of the plague-pit the scarcely less revolting scenes at the pest-house the dismal bell announcing the dead-cart the doleful cries of the buriers for graves surfeited with corruption, and streets filled with the dying and the dead and, above all, for the ever-haunting expectation that a like fate might be his own, he had exchanged green hills, fresh breezes, spreading views, the song of the lark, and a thousand other delights, and assurances of health and contentment.
This, I suppose, must be the case of a family in Houndsditch, where a man and his daughter, the rest of the family being, as I suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, were found stark naked, one in one chamber and one in another, lying dead on the floor, and the clothes of the beds, from whence 'tis supposed they were rolled off by thieves, stolen and carried quite away.
It was supposed that the disease originated in the Orient and was brought to London from Holland. In his "Journal of the Plague in London" Defoe describes its horrors, and tells of the dead-cart which went through the streets gathering the victims. A few extracts from Pepys's "Diary," the evidence of an eye-witness and a contemporary, show the ghastly aspects of this terrible visitation.
Don't talk; I feel in no mood for it just at present." Ormiston smiled to himself, and did not talk, accordingly; and in silence the two friends followed the gloomy dead-cart. A faint young moon, pale and sickly, was struggling dimly through drifts of dark clouds, and lighted the lonesome, dreary streets with a wan, watery glimmer.
Taking her hand, the earl then led her to a carriage, which conveyed them to Saint Saviour's. Just as they alighted, the dead-cart passed, and several bodies were brought towards it. Eager to withdraw her attention from the spectacle, Rochester hurried her into the old and beautiful church.
Strange and fantastic thoughts possessed him. He fancied that the legs and arms moved that the eyes of some of the corpses opened and glared at him and that the whole rotting mass was endowed with animation. So appalled was he by this idea that he turned away, and at that moment beheld a vehicle approaching. It was the dead-cart, charged with a heavy load to increase the already redundant heap.
Ormiston rushed down stair to intercept the dead-cart, already almost full on it way to the plague-pit. The driver stopped at his call, and instantly followed him up stairs, and into the room. Glancing at the body with the utmost sang-froid, he touched the dress, and indifferently remarked: "A bride, I should say; and an uncommonly handsome one too.
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