“The same night, Pepys and his wife and some friends took a boat at Whitehall steps and rowed downstream towards the Tower, meeting hundreds of boats loaded with people escaping with their treasures, and seeing furniture and household goods floating about in the water. As they drew nearer to London Bridge, the heat from streets of flaming buildings was so great that they were obliged to land on Bankside opposite. There, from a little inn, they watched London burning, as you saw it just now. When he reached home he wrote in his ‘Diary’ that as it grew darker, the fire appeared more and more ‘_and in corners, and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire_.’ At last it seemed ‘_as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruine._’” “That was as I saw it!” cried Betty. “Was his house burnt? Because Seething Lane isn’t far from London Bridge.” “No. It was in great danger, but it escaped. For two or three days after that Sunday, Pepys worked hard removing his treasures to a friend’s house at a distance, and burying his wine and important papers belonging to the Admiralty in a hole he dug in his garden. All that time London burnt, and the wildest scenes of confusion went on all round him, as the flames, helped by a strong wind, spread farther and farther. For nearly a week it raged, and when at last it was stopped in Smithfield——” “At Pie Corner,” interrupted Betty. Godmother smiled. “No child will ever forget that the fire began in Pudding Lane and ended at Pie Corner!” she remarked. “Well, when at last it was stopped, nearly the whole of London as it then existed, was in ruins, and two hundred thousand people were homeless.” “Whatever became of them, poor things?” “Thousands of them camped out in tents and huts, on what were then _real_ fields in Moorfields, outside Moorgate (then a _real_ gate in the City wall). But before we learn what became of them later, let us flash back for a moment or two and look at the city in ruins. It will be a sad sight, but we shall understand London better if we see it.” The magic rite with the ‘Diary’ was once more performed, and in a flash they found themselves standing near one of the wharves close to London Bridge, on to which Mr. Samuel Pepys was just stepping from a boat. He was richly and trimly dressed as usual (having got over the fright of the Fire), and his face was full of importance and curiosity. “He is going to look at the ruins,” Godmother said. “Let us follow him.” Their unconscious guide led them over mounds of hot ashes into Cheapside.