Hot and tired and dusty, reeking of sweat—their own and the horses’—the six of them stopped at a pretty little inn. Amber went swaggering in with the men, pretending that she was one of them. She felt pleased at this adventure, the more so because she was keenly aware that but for a lucky accident she would have been lying dead at Lime Park and not sitting here on a settle with her feet cocked up before the fire, stroking a ragged old dog and enjoying the succulent smells from a joint which turned and crackled over the flames. She was luxuriously tired and her muscles felt sore from the unaccustomed strain of riding astride. Nothing had ever tasted so good as the cool golden ale she swallowed from a pewter tankard.
She slept deeply that night and longer than she had intended, but they were off again at six. By noon they had reached Oxford, where they stopped for dinner. The hostess put two enormous black-jacks on the table and while they drank she brought in pewter plates and knives and spoons. When the joint was taken off the fire she carved it for them, very neatly, and then according to the custom they invited her to join them.
“I suppose you gentlemen are on your way to London to see the fire?” she inquired in a polite, conversational tone.
Heads turned all down the table, fingers paused halfway to their mouths. “Fire!”
“Ye hadn’t heard? Oh, there’s a great fire in London, they say.” She was full of importance at having such news to telclass="underline" burnt-out crops and the heat had been the most exciting source of conversation for some time. “There was a gentleman here not an hour since just come from there. He says it gets worse by the hour. Looks like it might take the whole city,” she added, shutting her mouth complacently and nodding at them.
“You mean there’s a big fire in London?” repeated Amber incredulously. “Not just a few houses?”
“Oh, Lord, no! It’s a big one, well enough. He said it was well along the river when he left—and that was yesterday afternoon.”
“Good Lord!” whispered Amber. She had visions of all her money burning, her clothes, and everything else that belonged to her. London in flames! “When did it begin? How did it start?”
“Began early Sunday morning,” she said. “Long before sun-up. They think it’s a Papist plot.”
“My God! And this is Monday noon! It’s been burning almost two days!” She turned excitedly to Big John. “How much farther is it? We’ve got to get there!”
“It’s seventy miles or more, sir. We could never make it if we rode all night. Better to ride till dark and then go on in the morning.”
In just a few minutes they had finished eating and were mounted. The hostess followed them out, pointing up into the sky. “Look at the sun! How red it’s turned!” They all looked up, shading their eyes with their hands, and there were others in the streets also looking up. The sun had a dull glow and its colour was fierce and ominous.
“Come on!” cried Amber, and they swept off, galloping down the road.
Amber did not want to stop at all that night for she was afraid that when she got there not only her money but the Earl too would have disappeared in the confusion. But it would have been all but impossible to reach the City, for travel by night was much slower and more dangerous than by day. When supper was over she went immediately to her room and without taking off more than her hat and boots and doublet threw herself onto the bed and fell fast asleep. Before dawn the hostess was rapping at the door and by five they were on the road again.
At each village they asked for news of the fire and heard the same thing everywhere: it was taking all the town, burning the Bridge, churches, houses, sparing nothing. And the closer they got to London the more people they saw on the roads, all going in the same direction. Farmers and workmen were throwing down their shovels and leaving their fields, setting out for the capital with carts and even wheelbarrows; vehicles of transportation were at a premium and a man might hire himself and cart at forty or fifty pounds for a few hours’ work—as much as a farmer was likely to make in a whole year’s time.
When they had gone fifteen more miles they could see the smoke, a great moving pall that hung in the distance, and soon little charred fragments of paper and linen and plaster began to drift down upon them. They galloped on and on, as fast as they could go, not stopping even to eat. The day was windy and the closer they got to London the fiercer it blew, whipping their cloaks about them. Amber lost her hat. They had to squint their eyes for the wind blew specks of tinder into them. As the afternoon began to fade the flames could be seen more clearly, leaping in great streaks, casting a threatening red glare over all the land.
It was almost night when they reached the City because for the last ten miles the roads were so congested that they could not move at even a walking pace. From far off they could hear the roar of the fire, like thousands of iron coach-wheels crashing together over cobblestones. There was a continuous echoing thunder as buildings collapsed or were blown up. From the churches that still stood, within the City and without, the bells rang frantically—sounding a wild call of distress that had never ceased since the fire had been discovered two days and a half before. As darkness settled the sky glowed red—like the top of a burning oven.
Just without the walls were the great open spaces of Moor Fields, already crowded with men and women and children, and more were constantly arriving—forcing the first comers back into the middle of the fields, packing them in tightly. Some had already pitched tents made of sheets or towels tied together. Women were suckling their babies; others were trying to prepare a meal with whatever food they had been able to save in those few awful moments before the flames had seized their houses. Some sat and stared, unable and unwilling to believe. Others stolidly stood and watched, the heat scorching their faces, though the glare of the fire made it impossible to see more than black silhouettes of the burning buildings.
At first no one had believed that the fire would be any more destructive than were dozens of fires London had every year. It had begun at two o’clock Sunday morning in Pudding Lane, a narrow little alley near the waterfront, and for hours it fed on the tar and hemp and coal that were stored beside the river. The Lord Mayor was brought to the scene in the early hours and said contemptuously that a woman might piss it out; for fear of making himself unpopular he refused to begin blowing up houses. But it swept on, terrifying and ruthless, destroying whatever lay in its path. When London Bridge caught, the City was doomed—for it was covered with buildings and as they collapsed they blocked that means of escape; charred timbers falling into the water destroyed the water-wheels underneath, and the one efficient means of fighting a great fire was gone. From then on it must be done with buckets of water passed from hand to hand, pumps, hooks for dragging down burning buildings, and hand-squirts.
Unalarmed, the people went to church as usual on Sunday, though some of them were brought running into the streets by a man who galloped along crying, “Arm! Arm! The French have landed!”
But complacency began to vanish as the fire backed up into the City, crawling steadily, leaping sometimes, driven and fed by the violent east wind. As it advanced it drove the people before it. Many of them refused to make any preparations for leaving until the flames had actually caught their houses, and then they seized whatever they could and ran—often taking articles of no value and leaving behind what was most important. Helpless, confused, they moved slowly through the narrow alleys. First they stopped at Cannon Street, which ran along the crest of the hill above the river, but the fire came on and by afternoon they were forced to move again.