"Courage, dearest," he said, kissing Ann, "I shall be back immediately." And without more ado he left her.
Martha was in tears. Patience had risen and was standing leaning upon Jessie, looking at the wonderful sight. By this time the whole centre of the city seemed to be one mass of flames, driven in long tongues of fire westward, spreading quickly along the water side.
"Do you think it will come this way?" asked Mr. Ewan of Peter Kemp, who stood beside him.
"Lor' no, sir," answered the man; "it's a pretty long way off yet, but the houses be so dry and so near together, and many of them are tarred, so that they set one another on fire."
Peter Kemp was right. The chronicles of the time tell us that the fire broke out in the house of one Farryner, the king's baker, in Pudding Lane, where the Monument now stands, and that it spread so quickly that before three o'clock in the morning three hundred houses were down. St. Magnus, by the bridge foot, was alight, and the houses near it in flames; the wind was so strong it seemed to sweep everything before it.
Unfortunately no one knew what to do, and the first few hours were lost. The lord mayor was at his wits' end, and when he received the command from the king to spare no houses, but pull them down before the fire, he exclaimed:
"Lord! what can I do? I am spent; people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it."
People were wandering about the streets distracted, and there was no efficient means of quenching the fire.[#]
[#] Pepys's account.
Delarry found the king leaving Whitehall in his barge with the Duke of York.