As good fortune would have it, there was one room still unoccupied. Of this the women took immediate possession, and where Patience could be tended. Late in the afternoon they were able to join the men in the little garden, and witnessed the fire growing ever more and more vivid, creeping up the steeples, appearing between the churches and the houses, as far as they could see up the hill on which the city stands, a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of a fire, but in fashion like a bow--a dreadful bow it was, a bow which had God's arrow in it with a flaming point.[#]
[#] Vincent.
It was an awful sight, and throughout Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the fire continued, at times seeming to die down, and then bursting forth again with redoubled fury. Up and down the city the Duke of York rode. Lord Craven, Delarry, Reginald Newbolt, and many other brave men fought the fire as they had never fought a living enemy. There was no thought of rest, no thought of staying their hand--desolation, ruin, surrounded them on every side. The town itself was in those days hardly more than a mile wide at any point; open country was all around, and the people who had made their escape camped out on Moorfields and in the meadows of the hillside slopes.
Fortunately the weather continued warm and dry, and there was bright moonlight. By mid-day on Friday all danger was past; but what had been the most picturesque city in Europe, was now a heap of ruins and ashes. Few lives had been lost, but old London had ceased to exist.
CHAPTER XXII
Found
It was Sunday morning, just a week since the fire had broken out and consumed the city. The bells of the churches that remained uninjured were ringing out, and crowds were passing over the ruins to reach the churches, there to confess their sins and their misdoings, and to pray the Lord to stay His wrath, and not utterly destroy His people.
No such scene of desolation was ever witnessed before, and let us pray it may never be witnessed again in the capital of the English nation. She had fallen very low, and now her people humbled themselves, acknowledging the hand of God which had chastised and yet had not slain them.
A man, a woman, and a girl were making their way from the crowded banks of the river up the Strand towards Somerset House. When they reached it they found the gates closed and guarded by soldiers, for the people who remained in the city were afraid of the many marauders and thieves who had escaped from the prisons and places of detention during the last few days. Newgate had been burnt down, and it had been impossible to keep a close watch over the prisoners, so that, now the danger of fire was over, a great fear of rapine, theft, and murder fell upon the honest inhabitants.
Those who could afford it, themselves set watchmen before their houses, and barred and bolted their doors. In the court-yard of Somerset House there were both soldiers and sailors mingled together. There was also a watch-box, used at night by the watchman, but at present a soldier stood in it with fixed bayonet. Seeing all this array, the three strangers slunk back and began conversing together.