up to the window and looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead
upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on her but her shift.
Although he called aloud, and knocked hard on the floor with his long
staff, yet nobody stirred or answered; neither could he hear any noise in
the house.

Upon this he came down again and acquainted his fellow, who went up also,
and, finding the case as above, they resolved either to acquaint the lord
mayor or some other magistrate with it. The magistrate, it seems, upon
the information of the two men, ordered the house to be broken open, a
constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that nothing
might be plundered; and accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found
in the house but that young woman, who, having been infected, and past
recovery, the rest had left her to die by herself. Everyone was gone,
having found some way to delude the watchman and to get open the door or
get out at some back door or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew
nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which the watchman had
heard, it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at
the bitter parting, which, to be sure, it was to them all, this being the
sister to the mistress of the house.

Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as particularly when
the watchman was sent some errand, that is to say, for necessaries, such as
food and physic, to fetch physicians if they would come, or surgeons, or
nurses, or to order the dead-cart, and the like. Now, when he went it was
his duty to lock up the outer door of the house and take the key away with
him; but to evade this and cheat the watchman, people got two or three keys
made to their locks, or they found means to unscrew the locks, open the
door, and go out as they pleased. This way of escape being found out, the
officers afterward had orders to padlock up the doors on the outside and