Part 7

On and on he ran, his excitement growing with every step he took. At the corner of Gracechurch Street the meeting streams of people made so dense a block that for a while his progress was checked; he was hemmed in amid a press of stout citizens, unable to see anything but their backs.

His ears were deafened by their shouts, which rose above the distant roar and crackle. Presently, when he again began to move onward, he heard a man near him say, in a loud voice:

“’Tis Pudding Lane, I tell you.”

The words were taken up around him. Pudding Lane! The cry flew from lip to lip, and stirred the crowd into a vast surging movement southward.

“Pudding Lane! What house, I wonder?” thought Martin. “The Three Tuns, perhaps; they’ve a lot of straw in their yard. Or perhaps it’s at Noakes’s, the oil-man’s. His shop would blaze.”

More and more eager to reach the scene of the fire, he began to push and wriggle and worm his way through the mob, getting his toes trodden on, and indignant thrusts and cuffings from those he incommoded. As he drew nearer to his goal the roar swelled; at moments, when he was able to look ahead, he saw dense clouds of smoke, brown and black, sweeping across the housetops westward, carried swiftly along by the north-east wind.

After what seemed to be hours of struggling he arrived at the corner of Fish Street Hill. The air was full of smoke and floating blacks and the suffocating smell of burning. The crowd here was denser than ever; the din louder and more terrible. Martin, already half-choked with the smoke, felt that his breath would be squeezed out of him by the pressure around. But he pushed and prodded, taking advantage of the least gap that opened as the throng swayed, and by and by he managed to force his way to a point where he should be able to see the houses on Fish Street Hill and in Pudding Lane opposite.

But where were the houses? He rubbed his smarting eyes, and looked and looked again. There were no houses any more. Where the great Star Inn had stood, with its galleries and yards and outbuildings, there was now nothing but a black smouldering heap. All down the Hill, all down the Lane, it was the same black waste and desolation: not a house remained standing. And as he looked he saw flames burst from the belfry of St. Magnus Church beyond, and a huge column of smoke shoot up around its lofty tower.

“The church is ablaze!” roared the crowd.

“The parsonage too! Save us all!”

Here and there among the throng were persons wringing their hands and lamenting the loss of all their possessions. Martin forced his way to one of them, and asked eagerly:

“Have you seen Mr. Faryner?”

“My house is gone—my house is gone!” was all the reply he received.

He went from one to another, repeating his question; no one knew the whereabouts of the baker. Martin felt anxious; the house and shop were utterly destroyed, their site was occupied only by heaps of charred and smouldering debris. Had Mr. Faryner and his family and journeyman escaped? It was clear that the fire must have broken out in the middle of the night. Had they been taken by surprise and perished in the flames?

Martin was at a loss what to do. His occupation was gone; there was no bread for him to carry; he could learn nothing of his employer, and he debated with himself whether to stay and watch the progress of the fire or to run home and tell the Gollops what he had seen. Deciding for the second course, he turned his back and tried to fight his way to Gracechurch Street. But the crowd had enormously increased. There were no policemen in those days to clear the streets, no firemen to dash up with their engines and pour water on the flames. In the churches were kept a few leather buckets and metal squirts, but they were useless in so great a conflagration.

An eddy in the stream of people carried Martin into Cannon Street, and he suddenly found himself pressed against Mr. Faryner’s man. He was swept past him, but managed to dodge back, and seized his arm firmly.

“Where is Mr. Faryner?” he cried.

“Safe and sound, thank God, with his friend the mercer in Cheapside,” the man answered. “But he’s in a terrible state of mind, and no wonder, seeing as the fire broke out in his shop.”

“In our shop?” asked Martin, in amazement.

“Ay, about two o’clock this morning. I woke out of my sleep feeling I was choking, and the place was full of smoke. I roused the master. We couldn’t get downstairs, so we had to climb through the garret window and along a gutter-pipe to the roof next door. How we did it, Heaven alone knows, and I wouldn’t venture it again for a thousand pounds.”

“What caused the fire?”

“Who knows? ’Tis my belief——”

But at this moment there was a cry of “Make way for the Lord Mayor!” People pushed this way and that, and in the commotion Martin was torn from the man’s side and swept along the street. It was hopeless to attempt to reach him again, or to take a direct course for home, and Martin allowed himself to drift on the tide.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST

WHAT SUSAN FOUND

The circular movement of the crowd brought Martin in time to a point where he was able to see how swiftly the fire was spreading. The houses at the end of London Bridge were ablaze. Between the bridge and Fishmongers’ Hall was a warren of dilapidated timber houses intersected by narrow alleys. Into those passages the strong wind bore sparks and blazing fragments; the dry wood easily caught fire, and it was evident that the whole district would soon be a furnace.

And now the inhabitants, at first careless spectators, were seized with panic fear, and in desperate haste began to move their goods and furniture from the doomed houses. From every door they sallied forth, laden with every article they could carry. There was a fierce demand for trucks and carts; some people hastened downhill to the riverside, and besought the aid of the watermen in conveying their goods out of harm’s way.

This suggested an idea to Martin. Mr. Faryner’s boat lay at the stairs some distance below the bridge. Why should he not use it to help the frantic people? He ought to ask Mr. Faryner’s leave, but it would take him hours to get through the crowd to the mercer’s house in Cheapside; indeed, it would be difficult enough, even by a roundabout route, to reach the stairs.

The arrival of the Lord Mayor on horseback, attended by his javelin men, had fortunately thinned the crowd at the corner of Eastcheap, and Martin, by dodging and winding, succeeded in making his way into one of the lanes running down to the river.

He would hardly have been surprised to find that the boat had already been taken away; but it was in its usual place, padlocked to the post. Springing in, he rowed out upon the river, which was already crowded with craft of all kinds: the wherries of the watermen, who would reap a rich harvest to-day: the barges of fine gentlemen come to view the spectacle.

Martin pulled over to the Surrey side, to avoid the sparks and burning masses that were falling from the houses at the northern end of the bridge, shot through one of the arches, and rowed across to the other shore. The fire was speeding westward like a devouring monster. He observed the flames leaping from house to house; the smoke, driven before the wind, already reaching past Blackfriars; the blazing particles that were whirled up and round, and fell hissing into the river.

The waterside was thronged with people clamouring for watermen, even throwing their goods into the water. When Martin pulled in to the nearest stairs he had to keep an oar’s length distant to prevent his boat from being overcrowded and swamped, and it was only after some argument and even altercation that he was able to take on board an old man and woman with all their little wealth tied up in huge bundles.

Having rowed them to Westminster, where they had a married daughter, and refused pay, he returned, and again selected the older people from those who besought his services. Time after time he went up and down the river, finding it more and more difficult to steer a course among the hundreds of craft, large and small, that almost blocked the waterway. And on shore the roar and crackle of the flames mingled with the cries and lamentations of homeless people.

At last, tired and hot and hungry, Martin pulled his empty boat down stream, fastened it to its post at the stairs which, being behind the fire, were deserted, and dragged himself wearily homeward. It was long past his dinner-time, but Susan Gollop had kept food waiting for him and for her husband, who had not yet returned.

“What’s come of the man?” she said, when Martin entered the room. “Stopping to see the fire they’re talking about, I suppose. And you’re as black as a sweep. What have you been doing?”

“Helping to save people’s goods,” Martin replied. “It’s a frightful fire, Susan; hundreds of houses burnt already, and there’s no stopping it while the wind’s so strong. Mr. Faryner’s house is burnt down.”

“Gracious me! What’ll you do for your living now? Where did this dratted fire start?”

“At our shop.”

“Well, to be sure! Some careless wretch didn’t rake out the embers, I warrant.”

“Shall we be burnt, Martin?” asked Lucy, timorously.

“Of course not, child,” Susan interposed. “It’s far enough off, and the wind blows it away from us, thank goodness. I don’t know what the world’s coming to, what with fires, and men who won’t come in to their vittles, and dark doings under the stairs.”

“What do you mean?” Martin asked.

“Why, look at this: what do you make of that?”

She held up a large brass button, to which were attached a few threads.

“Well?” said Martin, wondering.

“It’s not well: it’s a mystery. That’s a button from a man’s coat, and I found it in the cupboard under the stairs. I went in with a candle to take down the bed that Indian boy slept in, and tidy up, and there was the button a-shining on the floor.”

“What of that?”

“Why, that boy had no buttons: his clothes was all rags and strings.”

“It may have been there before.”

“That I’m sure it wasn’t, for I swept out the place myself for the boy. I ask you, how did that button come in my cupboard?”

“I can’t tell, and it doesn’t matter much. By the look of it it’s been torn off. I’ll just eat my dinner and then go off and see if I can find Gollop.”

But Martin did not find Gollop, nor indeed did he look very earnestly for him, so much interested was he in watching the fire. Soldiers, horse and foot, had been sent from Westminster to keep order in the streets. At the King’s command houses were being pulled down to stay the course of the flames. The streets were clogged with carts and barrows laden with the goods of fugitives. And the crowds were now declaring that the fire was the work of foreigners, and clamouring for vengeance.

It was late in the evening when Martin, tired out, once more reached home. Meeting the old Frenchman on the doorstep, he mentioned the excitement about foreigners, and suggested that his friend should avoid the crowds. Mounseer smiled and thanked him, but showed no signs of concern.

They stood on the doorstep watching the glow in the sky. It was a dark night, but every now and then a burst of flame in the distance lit up the street. Presently Mr. Seymour came along from the direction of the river. As he reached the foot of the steps a sudden brief illumination fell upon him. And in that moment Martin noticed that the top button of Mr. Seymour’s coat was missing.

Mr. Seymour halted, and, dangling his tasselled cane, said with a pleasant smile: “A magnificent spectacle, is it not? And we need not pay for seats.”

“As you say, sir,” replied the Frenchman coldly, turning to enter the house.

Martin was trying to see clearly the kind of buttons on Mr. Seymour’s coat, but that gentleman had faced about, so that his back was towards the fire, and the glow in the sky had dulled a little. In order to detain him, Martin asked:

“Are we quite safe here, sir?”

The Frenchman heard the question, and turned at the door, as if waiting with some anxiety for the answer.

“There’s not a doubt of it,” said Mr. Seymour. “We are a good distance behind the fire, and the east wind is driving it from us along the waterside.”

Martin had paid little attention to Mr. Seymour’s answer, so eager was he to satisfy himself as to the nature of the buttons. Mounseer, apparently reassured, had disappeared. Wheeling round to follow him into the house, Mr. Seymour came for a moment within the illumination from the red sky, and Martin almost jumped as he noticed that the buttons appeared to be made of the same metal as the one that Susan Gollop had found. They seemed also to be the same size, but of that he was not quite so sure.

He went into the house behind Mr. Seymour, watched him ascend to the upper floor, then ran down the basement stairs. Mrs. Gollop had prepared supper, and there was a look of disappointment on her face when she saw Martin enter alone.

“Have you seen Gollop?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t,” Martin replied.

“What has become of the man? I’m beginning to worrit. He’s such a regular man for his meals. He’s never missed his Sunday dinner since he came home from sea.”

“Isn’t that his step?” said Martin, running to the door.

Heavy, dragging footsteps were heard on the stairs. Lucy jumped up and joined her brother: Mrs. Gollop stood in her place, and with a quick lift of her apron wiped the corners of her eyes.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND

THE EMPTY ROOM

The constable tumbled rather than walked into the room. His hands and clothes were begrimed and black; his hat was crushed and shapeless; his fat, rosy cheeks were streaked with irregular patterns where his fingers had rubbed.

Susan Gollop stood with arms akimbo, grimly eyeing the returned wanderer.

“Well, if you’re not a pretty object!” she said severely; but her lips were trembling a little. “There! Fetch a basin of water, Lucy, and the pummy stone, and there’s a dirty towel on the rack.”

Dick Gollop plumped heavily into a chair.

“I’m dead beat, missus,” he murmured. “Give us a drink.”

Martin handed him a mug, and he took a deep draught.

“What a Sunday!” he exclaimed. “Fire and brimstone! The everlasting fire! And the Lord Mayor’s just as silly as any common man. My throat’s as dry as a bone. Another drink, lad.”

“Don’t you talk lightly of the Lord Mayor, my man,” said his wife reproachfully.

“Pish! He’s scared out of his wits, no good at all. The King’s the man for my money. ’Twas he sent orders to pull down houses so’s the fire wouldn’t have nothing to feed on; but bless me! the Lord Mayor goes up and down wringing his hands and crying, ‘What can I do?’ But I’m dead beat, I say: all day and all night at it; I’ll drop asleep where I sit.”

“Pardon,” said the Frenchman’s voice in the doorway. “You are of return. Tell me, I pray, the house: is it safe?”

“Don’t worrit about the house, Mounseer,” said Gollop. “There’s more call to worrit about yourself. Keep below deck, that’s my advice to you. The people are raging about all foreigners, specially French and Dutch, and if they catch you in the street, ten to one they’ll do you a mischief. I saw a Frenchman nearly torn limb from limb by a parcel of women because he was carrying fire-balls, they said. Turned out to be tennis-balls; that’s their ignorance. Don’t go out, Mounseer: what you can’t help, make the best of.”

The Frenchman smiled and thanked him, and returned to his own apartment.

“You’re sure we’re safe, Gollop?” said Susan. “We can go to sleep in our beds?”

“Sure I’m going to sleep in mine,” answered Gollop. “One more drink, then——”

“If you’re so sure, why’s that Mr. Seymour so frightened, then? He’s been going in and out all day; men have been traipsing up and down, carrying out boxes and parcels and things. _He’s_ not so sure, seemingly.”

The mention of Mr. Seymour reminded Martin of the button.

“I say, Susan,” he said, “where’s that button you found in the cupboard?”

“Bless the boy! What’s buttons to do with it? It’s on the mantelshelf, if you must know.”

Martin reached it down, examined it, and in a moment exclaimed:

“This is Mr. Seymour’s. His top button is missing. I saw him as he came in.”

“Well!” said Susan.

“Gundra must have torn it off. It was Mr. Seymour spirited him away.”

“Did you ever! You hear that, Gollop?”

“Eh? What?” said Gollop, who was beginning to doze in his chair.

“That Indian boy was carried off in the night, and ’twas Mr. Seymour done it. Poor little wretch! That’s kidnapping. You can’t go to sleep yet: what’s your precious law say to that?”

“The law says,” muttered Gollop drowsily, “what you can’t help, make——”

“Listen to me,” said his wife, shaking him. “You’ll just go upstairs at once with this button and show it to that Seymour, and ask him what he means by——”

“Avast there, woman!” cried the constable, heaving himself out of his chair. “I’ll sheer off to my bed and nowhere else, not for all the laws in the kingdom. Talk of buttons and nigger boys when all the world is afire! I’m dead-beat, I say, and I’ll turn in this minute.”

He lurched away into the bedroom and shut the door with a bang.

Susan looked at the door as if in a mind to follow her husband and drag him back. Then her face softened.

“Poor dear!” she said. “He’s that tired I never did see, and when a man’s tired let him be, that’s what I say. But that there Seymour!” Her lips shut tight. “Gollop can’t go, so I’ll go myself.”

“He won’t tell you anything,” said Martin.

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But I’ll not rest till I know what he’s done with that poor shrimp of a blackamoor. And if he won’t tell, leastways I’ll show him the button, and ask whether he owns it, and I warrant I’ll tell by the look on his face whether he’s a villain or not.”

“I’ll go with you—light you upstairs,” said Martin, taking a candle from the table.

“Go to bed, Lucy,” said Susan. “You are over-late already.”

“I want to know about the Indian boy,” said Lucy.

“Now, don’t make me cross. Go to bed at once; you shall hear all about it in the morning.”

Smoothing her apron and setting her cap straight, Mrs. Gollop marched out of the room, Martin following with the candle.

“_I’ll_ talk to him!” said the angry woman, as she began to climb the stairs. “_I’ll_ teach him to come stealing down in the dead of night and poking his nose into the rooms of honest people! _I’ll_ give him a piece of my mind, and his ears will be all of a tingle before he’s done with Susan Gollop!”

Martin noticed with amusement that the higher she got the lower fell the tone of her voice, until by the time she reached Mr. Seymour’s door and knocked, and asked, “Can I speak to you, sir?” her voice was as mild as the cooing of a dove.

There was no answer. She knocked again.

“Mr. Seymour, sir!”

There was still no answer. She waited a moment or two, then summoned up her resolution and turned the handle. To her surprise the door opened. The room was dark.

“Show me a light,” she whispered.

Martin, with the candle, stepped in front of her. A glance showed that the room was empty, except of the furniture and a quantity of litter on the floor.

“Well, I declare!” Susan cried, in loud indignation. “He’s gone, and took all his belongings. There’s a coward for you!”

Among the litter there were a few pieces of paper, suggesting that Mr. Seymour had torn up old letters before he left. Martin, all his suspicions revived, had the curiosity to collect these scraps.

“We can do nothing more,” he said. “I’d like to look at these bits of paper carefully downstairs.”

“They’re just love-letters or other rubbidge,” scoffed Mrs. Gollop, “and I’ve come up all these stairs for nothing at all!”

But half an hour later Martin, poring over the papers spread before him on the table by the light of two candles, was inclined to think that the journey had not been in vain. He had put together a number of scraps that appeared to be all in the same handwriting, and by shifting their positions until the torn edges fitted together he had composed a sentence or two that clearly formed part of a letter. What he read was as follows:

_. . . . Maria sails on Tuesday. All cargo must be stowed by Monday. Tell W. S. that I do not communicate with him direct, for reasons which . . ._

There was no more. Martin was at no loss to understand that the vessel sailing on Tuesday was the _Santa Maria_; nor was it long before he came to another conclusion. W. S. were the initials of his old employer, William Slocum.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD

’PRENTICES TO THE RESCUE

Dick Gollop and Martin both rose very late next morning. They left the house together, but soon parted, the former to return to his duty, the latter to resume his self-imposed office of helping people in need.

The Fire was still raging unchecked, and was spreading from the riverside streets towards the heart of the city. Many people who had indulged a careless belief in the safety of their dwellings had now flown to the opposite extreme of panic and despair, and the supply of carts, barrows, and wherries was hopelessly unequal to the demands of those anxious to save their goods. The streets in every direction were blocked by frantic fugitives, and the fields north of the city were already dotted with the encampments of homeless people.

When Martin reached the stairs where he had left his boat he found that it had disappeared. It was hopeless to look for it among the hundreds that were plying on the river, and Martin, feeling himself deprived of his occupation, made his way westwards, first with the idea of inquiring after Mr. Faryner, and then of getting a view of the progress of the Fire.

As he was jostling his way among the crowds who were moving up Cheapside, he was thrown against the old Frenchman, struggling along in the opposite direction. It flashed into his mind that Mounseer might have been paying another visit to Mr. Slocum, and his former feeling of puzzlement returned with redoubled force.

“Ah, my friend, what do you here?” asked the old man.

“My boat has been taken,” replied Martin, looking around rather anxiously; for the Frenchman’s words must have been heard by the persons near him, and his accent, coupled with the cut of his clothes and his general appearance, would certainly betray him as a foreigner.

“So you have nothing to do,” the Frenchman continued. “Same as me; your little sister go not to the school to-day, therefore am I unoccupied. I enjoy the holiday,” he added, with a smile. “We shall enjoy it together, eh?”

“Hadn’t you better go home, sir?” said Martin, remembering what Gollop had said overnight about the mob’s treatment of foreigners.

“Not at all, not at all. This great sight interest me very much. You shall take me to a place where the spectacle is most beautiful.”

Martin noticed one or two people scowling, and wished that Mounseer would hold his tongue. Determined to draw him away from the main stream of traffic he turned into an alley-way, intending to go by back streets as far as St. Paul’s, where, perhaps, the sacristan might allow them to ascend the tower.

Their course led them past the back entrance to Mr. Greatorex’s premises. Just before they reached it a man came out and walked towards Cheapside. Martin and the Frenchman recognised him at the same moment; he was the man whose scarred face they had seen at the window—the man who had knocked Martin down in Whitefriars.

“What next?” thought Martin. This was a new shock of surprise. Was this man also among Mr. Slocum’s acquaintances? The idea would never have occurred to Martin but for his thorough distrust of Mr. Slocum, and a strange suspicion was dawning on his mind when his attention was diverted by a sudden movement of the Frenchman, who hurried after the man, seized his arm, and began to speak excitedly in French.

The man stared, swore, caught sight of Martin, then suddenly shouted: