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"'The streets shall be covered with grass, and the living shall not be able to bury their dead, so it ran," said Rainbird. "And it has come to pass. Not a carriage of any description, save the dead-cart, is to be seen in the broadest streets of London, which are now as green as the fields without her walls, and as silent as the grave itself. Terrible times, as I said before terrible times!
On the other hand, it is observable that though at first the people would stop as they went along and call to the neighbours to come out on such an occasion, yet afterward no notice was taken of them; but that if at any time we found a corpse lying, go across the way and not come near it; or, if in a narrow lane or passage, go back again and seek some other way to go on the business we were upon; and in those cases the corpse was always left till the officers had notice to come and take them away, or till night, when the bearers attending the dead-cart would take them up and carry them away.
When the Rebels had kept the prisoners fasting for days, and then brought in delicacies to tempt their appetite, hoping thereby to induce them to desert their flag, he only answered, "I would rather be carried out in that 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.
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 churchyard, and why I was not at home saying my prayers against the dead-cart came for me, and the like. 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.
"Alas!" he cried, addressing the apprentice, "I was about to convey the remains of my poor child to the plague-pit. But I have been unable to accomplish my purpose. I hoped she would have escaped the polluting touch of those loathly attendants on the dead-cart." "She shall escape it," replied Leonard; "if you wish it, I will carry her to the pit myself."
One hundred died on the day Paul entered, and another hundred during the night. All day long the bodies lay among the living in the sun. When the dead-cart came in, they were thrown into it like logs of wood. It was a horrible sight, the stony eyes, the sunken cheeks, the matted hair, the ghastly countenances, the swaying limbs, as the cart jolted along the uneven ground!
But give me them back again. I have no intention of making you a present." "This is the livery of the Earl of Rochester," cried Leonard. "To be sure it is," replied Chowles, with a ghastly smile. "One of his servants is just dead." "Where is the profligate noble?" cried Leonard, eagerly. "There is the person who owned these clothes," replied Chowles, pointing to the dead-cart.
I saw funerals everywhere, and lighted torches, in the midst of the black night, shining upon tombs. Bowanee smiled in her ebon sky. As I thought of that divinity of destruction, I beheld with joy the dead-cart emptied of its coffins. The immense pit yawned like the mouth of hell; corpses were heaped upon corpses, and still it yawned the same.
"Well!" said Robert, looking up. "Master and missus be gone at last, and the rest won't live till morning." "Won't they?" said Robert, phlegmatically; "what a pity! Get 'em ready, and I'll stop the dead-cart when it comes round."
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