All infected houses become prisons, with watchers at the doors so that none might come out or go in. Pepys tells us that a complaint was brought against a man for taking a child from an infected house, and the case was inquired into by the magistrates. They discovered that the child was the little daughter of a saddler. All his other children had died of the plague, and the saddler and his wife were shut up in their house, never expecting to leave it alive. They had one only wish in their despair, and that was to save the life of their little girl. At last they managed to communicate with a friend, who promised to take her away from London. The child was handed down from the window stark naked, and the friend, having dressed it in fresh clothes, took it to Greenwich, where, when the story was known, it was permitted to remain. In all, the death-roll of that terrible year reached nearly 100,000, or about one-fifth of the total population. The worst time of all was in the first fortnight of September, when the deaths were over a thousand a day. As the summer passed, and the cold, high winds of winter blew, the plague gradually passed away. Scarcely, however, had the dead-cart ceased to go its rounds when fire laid well-nigh the whole city in ruins. It broke out at one o’clock on Sunday morning, September 2, 1666, at the house of a baker in Pudding Lane, not far from the Monument which now commemorates the visitation. Most of the city was then built of wood, and as a high wind was blowing at the time the flames spread rapidly. The citizens could do nothing to stop the fire, and before long the city from the Tower to the Temple, and from the river to Smithfield, was one sheet of flame. A great terror seized the people, but as soon as they recovered from their fright they endeavoured to save what they could from the flames. Five, ten, and even fifty pounds were given for a cart, and the barges and boats on the river were laden to the gunwale with fugitives and their belongings. The fields round London were full of furniture and of people camping out amidst the pitiful remnants of property which they had saved. On Monday night the streets were as light as noonday, and the flames had reached St. Paul’s. John Evelyn tells us in his diary that the stones flew like bombs, melting lead ran down the streets in streams, and the very pavements were red hot. “God grant,” says he, “my eyes may never behold the like. I now saw about ten thousand houses all in one flame. The noise and cracking and thunder of the flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of the people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an awful storm. The air was so hot that at last men were not able to approach the fire, and were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for nearly two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds of smoke were dismal, and reached nearly fifty-six miles in length. London was, but is no more!”