“You have ceased to roam the streets at night, and rouse the slumbering citizens to repentance?” asked Leonard.

“For the present I have,” returned Solomon Eagle.  “But I shall appear again when I am required.  But you shall now learn why I have brought you hither.  Look along those streets,” he added, pointing to the thoroughfares opening in different directions.  “What see you?”

“I see men piling heaps of wood and coals at certain distances, as if they were preparing bonfires,” replied Leonard.  “And yet it cannot be.  This is no season for rejoicing.”

“It has been supposed that the lighting of many thousand fires at once will purify the air,” replied Solomon Eagle; “and therefore the Lord Mayor has given orders that heaps of fuel shall be placed before every house in every street in the city, and that all these heaps shall be kindled at a certain hour.  But it will be of no avail.  The weather is now fine and settled, and the sky cloudless.  But the offended Deity will cause the heaviest rain to descend, and extinguish their fires.  No—­the way to avert the pestilence is not by fire, but by prayer and penitence, by humiliation and fasting.  Let this sinful people put on sackcloth and ashes.  Let them beseech God, by constant prayer, to forgive them, and they may prevail, but not otherwise.”

“And when are these fires to be lighted?” asked the apprentice.

“To-night, at midnight,” replied Solomon Eagle.

He then took Leonard by the hand, and led him back the same way he had brought him.  On reaching the spiral staircase, he said, “If you desire to behold a sight, such as a man has seldom witnessed, ascend to the summit of this tower an hour after midnight, when all these fires are lighted.  A small door on the left of the northern entrance shall be left open.  It will conduct you to the back of the choir, and you must then find your way hither as well as you can.”

Murmuring his thanks, Leonard hurried down the spiral staircase, and quitting the cathedral, proceeded in the direction of Wood-street.  Preparations were everywhere making for carrying the Lord Mayor’s orders into effect; and such was the beneficial result anticipated, that a general liveliness prevailed, on reaching his master’s residence, he found him at the shutter, curious to know what was going forward; and having informed him, the grocer immediately threw him down money to procure wood and coal.

“I have but little faith in the experiment,” he said, “but the Lord Mayor’s injunctions must be obeyed.”

With the help of Dallison, who had now arrived, Leonard Holt soon procured a large heap of fuel, and placed it in the middle of the street.  The day was passed in executing other commissions for the grocer, and he took his meals in the hutch with the porter.  Time appeared to pass with unusual slowness, and not he alone, but anxious thousands, awaited the signal to kindle their fires.  The night was profoundly