windows and doors of their houses, where their dearest relations were
perhaps dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard as we passed
the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the
world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen almost in every
house, especially in the first part of the visitation; for towards the
latter end men's hearts were hardened, and death was so always before
their eyes, that they did not so much concern themselves for the loss
of their friends, expecting that themselves should be summoned the next
hour.

Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the town, even when
the sickness was chiefly there; and as the thing was new to me, as
well as to everybody else, it was a most surprising thing to see those
streets which were usually so thronged now grown desolate, and so few
people to be seen in them, that if I had been a stranger and at a loss
for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a whole street (I
mean of the by-streets), and seen nobody to direct me except watchmen
set at the doors of such houses as were shut up, of which I shall speak
presently.

One day, being at that part of the town on some special business,
curiosity led me to observe things more than usually, and indeed I
walked a great way where I had no business. I went up Holborn, and there
the street was full of people, but they walked in the middle of the
great street, neither on one side or other, because, as I suppose, they
would not mingle with anybody that came out of houses, or meet with
smells and scent from houses that might be infected.

The Inns of Court were all shut up; nor were very many of the lawyers in
the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn, to be seen there. Everybody