r that the citizens might not be affrighted; and when it was at
its height no exact account of those shifted from the dead-carts into
the pits was taken. Moreover, many were buried by their friends in
fields and gardens. Lord Clarendon, an excellent authority, states
that though the weekly bills reckoned the number of deaths at about one
hundred thousand, yet "many who could compute very well, concluded that
there were in truth double that number who died; and that in one week,
when the bill mentioned only six thousand, there had in truth fourteen
thousand died."

CHAPTER XII.

A cry of fire by night.--Fright and confusion.--The lord mayor is
unmanned.--Spread of the flames.--Condition of the streets.--Distressful
scenes.--Destruction of the Royal Exchange.--Efforts of the king and
Duke of York.--Strange rumours and alarms.--St. Paul's is doomed.--The
flames checked.--A ruined city as seen by day and night.--Wretched state
of the people.--Investigation into the origin of the fire.--A new city
arises.

Scarcely had the city of London recovered from the dire effects of
the plague, ere a vast fire laid it waste. It happened on the 2nd of
September, 1666, that at two o'clock in the morning, the day being
Sunday, smoke and flames were seen issuing from the shop of a baker
named Faryner, residing in Pudding Lane, close by Fish Street, in the
lower part of the city. The house being built of wood, and coated with
pitch, as were likewise those surrounding it, and moreover containing
faggots, dried logs, and other combustible materials, the fire spread
with great rapidity: so that in a short time not only the baker's
premises, but the homesteads which stood next it on either side were in
flames.

Accordingly, the watchman's lusty cry of "Fire, fire, fire!" which had
roused the baker and his family in good time to save their lives, was
now shouted down the streets with consternation, startling sleepers from
their dreams, and awaking them to a sense of peril. Thereon they rose
promptly from their beds, and hastily throwing on some clothes, rushed
out to rescue their neighbours' property from destruction, and subdue
the threatening conflagration.

And speedily was heard the tramp of many feet hurrying to the scene, and
the shouting of anxious voices crying for help; and presently the
bells of St. Margaret's church close by, ringing with wild uneven peals
through the darkness, aroused all far and near to knowl