The men, for the most part, were abroad in the streets, drawn thither by the excitement of the great fire, and by the hope of helping to save other persons and goods.  But the women and children crowded together in helpless dismay, watching from the windows the increasing glow in the sky as the sun sank and night came on, and mingling tears of terror for others with their own lamentations over the loss of houses and goods.

Good Rachel Harmer and her daughters and daughter-in-law moved amongst the poor creatures like ministering angels.  The children were fed and put to bed by twos and threes together.  The mothers were bidden to table in relays, and everything was done to cheer and sustain them.  Good James Harmer thought not of his own goods when his neighbours were in dire need, and neither he nor his son grudged the hospitality which was willingly accorded to all who asked it, even though the houses would not stretch themselves out for the accommodation of more than a certain number.

But as in times of trouble men draw very near together, so the misfortune of the citizens of London opened the hearts of their neighbours of Southwark and the surrounding villages, who themselves were now safe and in no danger from the great fire.  Hospitable countrymen came with wagons and took away homeless creatures with their few poor goods, to be entertained for a while by their own wives and daughters.  Others who had to encamp in the open fields were supplied with food by the surrounding inhabitants; and although there were much sorrow of heart and distress, the kindness shown to the burned out families did much to assuage their woes.

James Harmer, who had done much to see to the safe housing of multitudes of women and children, came home at last, and gathering his household about him, gave thanks for their timely preservation in another great peril; and then he dismissed them to their beds, bidding them sleep, for that none knew what the morrow might bring forth.  And they went to such couches as they could find for themselves, ready to do his behest; and though London was in flames, and the house almost as light as day, there were few that did not sleep soundly on the night which followed that strange eventful Sunday.

CHAPTER XVIII.  WHAT BEFELL DINAH.

Dinah Morse and her niece Janet were faring sumptuously in Lord Desborough’s house, hard by St. Paul’s Churchyard.  His young wife lay sick of a grievous fever, and he was well nigh distracted by the fear of losing her.

Nothing was too good for her, or for the gentle-faced, soft-voiced nurses who had come to tend her in her hour of need.  The best of everything was at their disposal; and it was no great source of regret to them that several of the hired servants had fled before their arrival, a whisper having gone through the house that her ladyship had taken the plague.