As for myself, I found shelter, for the time, with my kinsman, Master Harford, in his fine mansion, hard by the Church of Saint Peter on Cornhill. Whether he would have kept me now that his scheme of lodging me with Master Drake had fallen through, I cannot say; but, if he ever entertained any such purpose, it was shortly dismissed by reason of my behaviour. 'Twas, as I have said, a fine mansion, Master Harford being one of the wealthiest merchants in London, and the table kept proportionate thereto. There was no mistress of the house, Master Harford being, as I have said, a bachelor, but a housekeeper, Joan Fuller by name, a kind woman, and knowing in all the knowledge of the store-room and kitchen, but otherwise of scant sense. She, having none on whom to bestow her affections, save a cat and a dog, took a mighty favour to me, which favour she showed in the fashion that she herself would have most approved, if I may say so much without unkindness to the memory of one that is now deceased; for she plied me, both in season and out of season, with all manner of dainty meats, so that in the space of eight days or thereabouts I fell sick. 'Twas no great matter, only a sickness as would come to any child that had been so dealt with, and was easily set right by the apothecary's medicines, which, to my mind, so nauseous were they, did more than outweigh all the pleasure of my dainty feeding; but it settled Master Harford in his intention to lodge me elsewhere than in his own house. Master Drake could not entertain me any more, having to be content with scant lodging for himself and his wife and daughter. Nor was there any talk of building up the houses again; and this, indeed, was not done for more than thirteen years after the burning; but the sides of the bridge where they had been were covered in with boarding. So it came about that I was sent back to my first lodging with Master Rushworth, in the Strand. He was, as I have said, a merchant of timber, and had his house in the Strand, on the north side, with a yard on the other side of the street, in which he stored his goods and did his buying and selling. In this I was free to play as much as suited my liking, and here also I found great delights, of which the chief, I think, was the discovery that the captain of one of the barges which brought him timber was a certain William Beasley, of Oxford, who had served my father as bailiff and fisherman, and in other employments, as many as a single pair of his hands could discharge. With him I had much talk, and always counted this talk very precious, it being chiefly of home matters, so that only the actual going thither could by any means be more to be desired. CHAPTER III. OF THE PLAGUE AND OTHER MATTERS.