When London Burned : a Story of Restoration Times and the Great Fire

"That would be excellent," Cyril said. "Of course, at the supper-hour he could go off duty, as she could not possibly leave the house between that time and nine o'clock. You always come in about that hour, and I hear you go up to bed. When you get there, you should at once take off your boots, slip downstairs again with them, and go quietly out. I often sit talking with Captain Dave till half-past nine or ten, but directly I can get away I will come down and join you. I think in that way we need feel no uneasiness as to harm coming from our not telling Captain Dave, for it would be impossible for her to get off unnoticed. Now that is all arranged I must be going, for I shall be late at my appointment unless I hurry."

"Shall I go round and begin my watch at once, Master Cyril?".

"No, there is no occasion for that. We know that he missed her to-day, and therefore can have made no appointment; and I am convinced by what he said to the fellows he met, that matters are not settled yet. However, we will begin to-morrow. You can take an opportunity during the day to tell Matthew about it, and he can pretend to strain his back in the afternoon, and you can send him away. He can come round again next morning early, and when the Captain comes down you can tell him that you find that Matthew will not be able to work for the present, and ask him to let you take another man on until he can come back again."

Cyril watched Nellie closely at meal-times and in the evening for the next few days. He thought that he should be certain to detect some slight change in her manner, however well she might play her part, directly she decided on going off with this man. She would not dream that she was suspected in any way, and would therefore be the less cautious. Matthew kept watch during the day, and followed if she went out with her father to a neighbour's, remaining on guard outside the house until John Wilkes relieved him as soon as he had finished his supper. If she remained at home in the evening John went out silently, after his return at his usual hour, and was joined by Cyril as soon as Captain Dave said good-night and went in to his bedroom. At midnight they re-entered the house and stole up to their rooms, leaving their doors open and listening attentively for another hour before they tried to get to sleep.

On the sixth morning Cyril noticed that Nellie was silent and abstracted at breakfast-time. She went out marketing with her mother afterwards, and at dinner her mood had changed. She talked and laughed more than usual. There was a flush of excitement on her cheeks, and he drew the conclusion that in the morning she had not come to an absolute decision, but had probably given an answer to the man during the time she was out with her mother, and that she felt the die was now cast.

"Pass the word to Matthew to keep an extra sharp watch this afternoon and to-morrow, John. I think the time is close at hand," he said, as they went downstairs together after dinner.

"Do you think so? Well, the sooner the better. It is trying work, this here spying, and I don't care how soon it is over. I only hope it will end by our running down this pirate and engaging him."

"I hope so too, John. I feel it very hard to be sitting at table with her and Captain Dave and her mother, and to know that she is deceiving them."

"I can't say a word for her," the old sailor said, shaking his head. "She has as good parents as a girl could want to have. They would give their lives for her, either of them, cheerful, and there she is thinking of running away from them with a scamp she knows nothing of and has probably never spoken with for an hour. I knew her head was a bit turned with young fellows dangling after her, and by being noticed by some of the Court gallants at the last City ball, and by being made the toast by many a young fellow in City taverns—'Pretty Mistress Nellie Dowsett'; but I did not think her head was so turned that she would act as she is doing. Well, well, we must hope that this will be a lesson, Master Cyril, that she will remember all her life."

"I hope so, John, and I trust that we shall be able to manage it all so that the matter will never come to her parents' ears."

"I hope so, and I don't see why it should. The fellow may bluster, but he will say nothing about it because he would get into trouble for trying to carry off a citizen's daughter."

"And besides that, John,—which would be quite as serious in the eyes of a fellow of this sort,—he would have the laugh against him among all his companions for having been outwitted in the City. So I think when he finds the game is up he will be glad enough to make off without causing trouble."

"Don't you think we might give him a sound thrashing? It would do him a world of good."

"I don't think it would do a man of that sort much good, John, and he would be sure to shout, and then there would be trouble, and the watch might come up, and we should all get hauled off together. In the morning the whole story would be known, and Mistress Nellie's name in the mouth of every apprentice in the City. No, no; if he is disposed to go off quietly, by all means let him go."

"I have no doubt that you are right, Master Cyril, but it goes mightily against the grain to think that a fellow like that is to get off with a whole skin. However, if one should fall foul of him some other time, one might take it out of him."

Captain Dave found Cyril but a bad listener to his stories that evening, and, soon after nine, said he should turn in.

"I don't know what ails you to-night, Cyril," he said. "Your wits are wool-gathering, somewhere. I don't believe that you heard half that last story I was telling you."

"I heard it all, sir; but I do feel a little out of sorts this evening."

"You do too much writing, lad. My head would be like to go to pieces if I were to sit half the hours that you do at a desk."

When Captain Dave went into his room, Cyril walked upstairs and closed his bedroom door with a bang, himself remaining outside. Then he took off his boots, and, holding them in his hand, went noiselessly downstairs to the front door. The lock had been carefully oiled, and, after putting on his boots again, he went out.

"You are right, Master Cyril, sure enough," John Wilkes said when he joined him, fifty yards away from the house. "It is to-night she is going to try to make off. I thought I had best keep Matthew at hand, so I bid him stop till I came out, then sent him round to have a pint of ale at the tavern, and when he came back told him he had best cruise about, and look for signs of pirates. He came back ten minutes ago, and told me that a sedan chair had just been brought to the other end of the lane. It was set down some thirty yards from Fenchurch Street. There were the two chairmen and three fellows wrapped up in cloaks."

"That certainly looks like action, John. Well, I should say that Matthew had better take up his station at the other end of the lane, there to remain quiet until he hears an uproar at the chair; then he can run up to our help if we need it. We will post ourselves near the door. No doubt Harvey, and perhaps one of his friends, will come and wait for her. We can't interfere with them here, but must follow and come up with her just before they reach the chair. The further they are away from the house the better. Then if there is any trouble Captain Dave will not hear anything of it."

"That will be a good plan of operations," John agreed. "Matthew is just round the next corner. I will send him to Fenchurch Street at once."

He went away, and rejoined Cyril in two or three minutes. They then went along towards the house, and took post in a doorway on the other side of the street, some thirty yards from the shop. They had scarcely done so, when they heard footsteps, and presently saw two men come along in the middle of the street. They stopped and looked round.

"There is not a soul stirring," one said. "We can give the signal."

So saying, he sang a bar or two of a song popular at the time, and they then drew back from the road into a doorway and waited.

Five minutes later, Cyril and his fellow-watcher heard a very slight sound, and a figure stepped out from Captain Dowsett's door. The two men crossed at once and joined her. A few low words were spoken, and they moved away together, and turned up the lane.

As soon as they disappeared from sight, Cyril and John Wilkes issued out. The latter had produced some long strips of cloth, which he wound round both their boots, so as, he said, to muffle the oars. Their steps, therefore, as they followed, were almost noiseless. Walking fast, they came up to the three persons ahead of them just as they reached the sedan chair. The two chairmen were standing at the poles, and a third man was holding the door open with his hat in his hand.

"Avast heaving, mates!" John Wilkes said. "It seems to me as you are running this cargo without proper permits."

Nellie gave a slight scream on hearing the voice, while the man beside her stepped forward, exclaiming furiously:

"S" death, sir! who are you, and what are you interfering about?"

"I am an honest man I hope, master. My name is John Wilkes, and, as that young lady will tell you, I am in the employ of her father."

"Then I tell you, John Wilkes, or John the Devil, or whatever your name maybe, that if you don't at once take yourself off, I will let daylight into you," and he drew his sword, as did his two companions.

John gave a whistle, and the wooden-legged man was heard hurrying up from Fenchurch Street.

"Cut the scoundrel down, Penrose," Harvey exclaimed, "while I put the lady into the chair."

The man addressed sprang at Wilkes, but in a moment his Court sword was shivered by a blow from the latter's cudgel, which a moment later fell again on his head, sending him reeling back several paces.

"Stay, sir, or I will run you through," Cyril said, pricking Harvey sharply in the arm as he was urging Nellie to enter the chair.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" the other exclaimed, in a tone of fury. "My boy of Cheapside! Well, I can spare a moment to punish you."

"Oh, do not fight with him, my lord!" Nellie exclaimed.

"My lord!" Cyril laughed. "So he has become a lord, eh?"

Then he changed his tone.

"Mistress Nellie, you have been deceived. This fellow is no lord. He is a hanger-on of the Court, one John Harvey, a disreputable blackguard whom I heard boasting to his boon-companions of his conquest. I implore you to return home as quietly as you went. None will know of this."

He broke off suddenly, for, with an oath, Harvey rushed at him. Their swords clashed, there was a quick thrust and parry, and then Harvey staggered back with a sword-wound through the shoulder, dropping his sword to the ground.

"Your game is up, John Harvey," Cyril said. "Did you have your deserts I would pass my sword through your body. Now call your fellows off, or it will be worse for them."

"Oh, it is not true? Surely it cannot be true?" Nellie cried, addressing Harvey. "You cannot have deceived me?"

The fellow, smarting with pain, and seeing that the game was up, replied with a savage curse.

"You may think yourself lucky that you are only disabled, you villain!" Cyril said, taking a step towards him with his sword menacingly raised. "Begone, sir, before my patience is exhausted, or, by heaven! it will be your dead body that the chairmen will have to carry away."

"Disabled or not," John Wilkes exclaimed, "I will have a say in the matter;" and, with a blow with his cudgel, he stretched Harvey on the ground, and belaboured him furiously until Cyril dragged him away by force. Harvey rose slowly to his feet.

"Take yourself off, sir," Cyril said. "One of your brave companions has long ago bolted; the other is disarmed, and has his head broken. You may thank your stars that you have escaped with nothing worse than a sword-thrust through your shoulder, and a sound drubbing. Hanging would be a fit punishment for knaves like you. I warn you, if you ever address or in any way molest this lady again, you won't get off so easily."

Then he turned and offered his arm to Nellie, who was leaning against the wall in a half-fainting state. Not a word was spoken until they emerged from the lane.

"No one knows of this but ourselves, Mistress Nellie, and you will never hear of it from us. Glad indeed I am that I have saved you from the misery and ruin that must have resulted from your listening to that plausible scoundrel. Go quietly upstairs. We will wait here till we are sure that you have gone safely into your room; then we will follow. I doubt not that you are angry with me now, but in time you will feel that you have been saved from a great danger."

The door was not locked. He lifted the latch silently, and held the door open for her to pass in. Then he closed it again, and turned to the two men who followed them.

"This has been a good night's work, John."

"That has it. I don't think that young spark will be coming after City maidens again. Well, it has been a narrow escape for her. It would have broken the Captain's heart if she had gone in that way. What strange things women are! I have always thought Mistress Nellie as sensible a girl as one would want to see. Given a little over-much, perhaps, to thinking of the fashion of her dress, but that was natural enough, seeing how pretty she is and how much she is made of; and yet she is led, by a few soft speeches from a man she knows nothing of, to run away from home, and leave father, and mother, and all. Well, Matthew, lad, we sha'n't want any more watching. You have done a big service to the master, though he will never know it. I know I can trust you to keep a stopper on your jaws. Don't you let a soul know of this—not even your wife."

"You trust me, mate," the man replied. "My wife is a good soul, but her tongue runs nineteen to the dozen, and you might as well shout a thing out at Paul's Cross as drop it into her ear. I think my back will be well enough for me to come to work again to-morrow," he added, with a laugh.

"All right, mate. I shall be glad to have you again, for the chap who has been in your place is a landsman, and he don't know a marling-spike from an anchor. Good-night, mate."

"Well, Master Cyril," he went on, as the sailor walked away, "I don't think there ever was such a good wind as that which blew you here. First of all you saved Captain Dave's fortune, and now you save his daughter. I look on Captain Dave as being pretty nigh the same as myself, seeing as I have been with him man and boy for over thirty years, and I feel what you have done for him just as if you had done it for me. I am only a rough sailor-man, and I don't know how to put it in words, but I feel just full up with a cargo of thankfulness."

"That is all right," Cyril said, holding out his hand, which John Wilkes shook with a heartiness that was almost painful. "Captain Dave offered me a home when I was alone without a friend in London, and I am glad indeed that I have been able to render him service in return. I myself have done little enough, though I do not say that the consequences have not been important. It has been just taking a little trouble and keeping a few watches—a thing not worth talking about one way or the other. I hope this will do Mistress Nellie good. She is a nice girl, but too fond of admiration, and inclined to think that she is meant for higher things than to marry a London citizen. I think to-night's work will cure her of that. This fellow evidently made himself out to her to be a nobleman of the Court. Now she sees that he is neither a nobleman nor a gentleman, but a ruffian who took advantage of her vanity and inexperience, and that she would have done better to have jumped down the well in the yard than to have put herself in his power. Now we can go up to bed. There is no more probability of our waking the Captain than there has been on other nights; but mind, if we should do so, you stick to the story we agreed on, that you thought there was someone by the gate in the lane again, and so called me to go down with you to investigate, not thinking it worth while to rouse up the Captain on what might be a false alarm."

Everything remained perfectly quiet as they made their way upstairs to their rooms as silently as possible.

"Where is Nellie?" Captain Dave asked, when they assembled at breakfast.

"She is not well," his wife replied, "I went to her room just now and found that she was still a-bed. She said that she had a bad headache, and I fear that she is going to have a fever, for her face is pale and her eyes red and swollen, just as if she had been well-nigh crying them out of her head; her hands are hot and her pulse fast. Directly I have had breakfast I shall make her some camomile tea, and if that does not do her good I shall send for the doctor."

"Do so, wife, without delay. Why, the girl has never ailed a day for years! What can have come to her?"

"She says it is only a bad headache—that all she wants is to be left alone."

"Yes, yes; that is all very well, but if she does not get better soon she must be seen to. They say that there were several cases last week of that plague that has been doing so much harm in foreign parts, and if that is so it behoves us to be very careful, and see that any illness is attended to without delay."

"I don't think that there is any cause for alarm," his wife said quietly. "The child has got a headache and is a little feverish, but there is no occasion whatever for thinking that it is anything more. There is nothing unusual in a girl having a headache, but Nellie has had such good health that if she had a prick in the finger you would think it was serious."

"By the way, John," Captain Dave said suddenly, "did you hear any noise in the lane last night? Your room is at the back of the house, and you were more likely to have heard it than I was. I have just seen one of the watch, and he tells me that there was a fray there last night, for there is a patch of blood and marks of a scuffle. It was up at the other end. There is some mystery about it, he thinks, for he says that one of his mates last night saw a sedan chair escorted by three men turn into the lane from Fenchurch Street just before ten o'clock, and one of the neighbours says that just after that hour he heard a disturbance and a clashing of swords there. On looking out, he saw something dark that might have been a chair standing there, and several men engaged in a scuffle. It seemed soon over, and directly afterwards three people came down the lane this way. Then he fancied that someone got into the chair, which was afterwards carried out into Fenchurch Street."

"I did hear something that sounded like a quarrel or a fray," John Wilkes said, "but there is nothing unusual about that. As everything was soon quiet again, I gave no further thought to it."

"Well, it seems a curious affair, John. However, it is the business of the City watch and not mine, so we need not bother ourselves about it. I am glad to see you have got Matthew at work again this morning. He tells me that he thinks he has fairly got over that sprain in his back."

CHAPTER VIII
THE CAPTAIN'S YARN

Mindful of the fact that this affair had added a new enemy to those he had acquired by the break-up of the Black Gang, Cyril thought it as well to go round and give notice to the two traders whose books he attended to in the evening, that unless they could arrange for him to do them in the daytime he must give up the work altogether. Both preferred the former alternative, for they recognised the advantage they had derived from his work, and that at a rate of pay for which they could not have obtained the services of any scrivener in the City.

It was three or four days before Nellie Dowsett made her appearance at the general table.

"I can't make out what ails the girl," her mother said, on the previous evening. "The fever speedily left her, as I told you, but she is weak and languid, and seems indisposed to talk."

"She will soon get over that, my dear," Captain Dave said. "Girls are not like men. I have seen them on board ship. One day they are laughing and fidgeting about like wild things, the next day they are poor, woebegone creatures. If she gets no better in a few days, I will see when my old friend, Jim Carroll, is starting in his brig for Yarmouth, and will run down with her myself—and of course with you, wife, if you will go—and stay there a few days while he is unloading and filling up again. The sea-air will set her up again, I warrant."

"Not at this time of year," Dame Dowsett said firmly. "With these bitter winds it is no time for a lass to go a-sailing; and they say that Yarmouth is a great deal colder than we are here, being exposed to the east winds."

"Well, well, Dame, then we will content ourselves with a run in the hoy down to Margate. If we choose well the wind and tide we can start from here in the morning and maybe reach there late in the evening, or, if not, the next morning to breakfast. Or if you think that too far we will stop at Sheerness, where we can get in two tides easily enough if the wind be fair."

"That would be better, David; but it were best to see how she goes on. It may be, as you say, that she will shortly gain her strength and spirits again."

It was evident, when Nellie entered the room at breakfast-time the next morning, that her mother's reports had not been exaggerated. She looked, indeed, as if recovering from a severe illness, and when she said good-morning to her father her voice trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

"Tut, tut, lass! This will never do. I shall soon hardly own you for my Nellie. We shall have to feed you up on capons and wine, child, or send you down to one of the baths for a course of strengthening waters."

She smiled faintly, and then turning, gave her hand to Cyril. As she did so, a slight flush of colour came into her cheeks.

"I am heartily glad to see you down again, Mistress Nellie," he said, "and wish you a fair and speedy recovery."

"I shall be better presently," she replied, with an effort. "Good-morning, John."

"Good-morning, Mistress Nellie. Right glad are we to see you down again, for it makes but a dull table without your merry laugh to give an edge to our appetites."

She sat down now, and the others, seeing that it was best to let her alone for a while, chatted gaily together.

"There is no talk in the City but of the war, Cyril," the Captain said presently. "They say that the Dutch make sure of eating us up, but they won't find it as easy a job as they fancy. The Duke of York is to command the Fleet. They say that Prince Rupert will be second. To my mind they ought to have entrusted the whole matter to him. He proved himself as brave a captain at sea as he was on land, and I will warrant he would lead his ships into action as gallantly as he rode at the head of his Cavaliers on many a stricken field. The ships are fitting out in all haste, and they are gathering men at every sea-port. I should say they will have no lack of hands, for there are many ships laid up, that at other times trade with Holland, and Dantzic, and Dunkirk, and many a bold young sailor who will be glad to try whether he can fight as stoutly against the Dutch under York and Rupert as his father did under Blake."

"For my part," Cyril said, "I cannot understand it; for it seems to me that the English and Dutch have been fighting for the last year. I have been too busy to read the Journal, and have not been in the way of hearing the talk of the coffeehouses and taverns; but, beyond that it is some dispute about the colonies, I know little of the matter."

"I am not greatly versed in it myself, lad. Nellie here reads the Journal, and goes abroad more than any of us, and should be able to tell us something about it. Now, girl, can't you do something to set us right in this matter, for I like not to be behind my neighbours, though I am such a stay-at-home, having, as I thank the Lord, much happiness here, and no occasion to go out to seek it."

"There was much discourse about it, father, the evening I went to Dame King's. There were several gentlemen there who had trade with the East, and one of them held shares in the English Company trading thither. After supper was over, they discoursed more fully on the matter than was altogether pleasing to some of us, who would much rather that, as we had hoped, we might have dancing or singing. I could see that Dame King herself was somewhat put out that her husband should have, without her knowing of his intention, brought in these gentlemen. Still, the matter of their conversation was new to us, and we became at last so mightily interested in it that we listened to the discourse without bemoaning ourselves that we had lost the amusement we looked for. I know I wished at the time that you had been there. I say not that I can repeat all that I heard, but as I had before read some of the matters spoken of in the Journal, I could follow what the gentlemen said more closely. Soon after the coming of the King to the throne the friendship between us and the Spaniards, that had been weakened during the mastership of Cromwell, was renewed, and they gave our ships many advantages at their ports, while, on the other hand, they took away the privileges the Dutch had enjoyed there, and thus our commerce with Spain increased, while that of the Dutch diminished."

"That is certainly true, Nellie," her father said. "We have three ships sailing through the Mediterranean now to one that sailed there ten years ago, and doubtless the Dutch must have suffered by the increase in our trade."

"Then he said that, as we had obtained the Island of Bombay in the East Indies and the City of Tangier in Africa as the dowry of the Queen, and had received the Island of Poleron for our East India Company by the treaty with Holland, our commerce everywhere increased, and raised their jealousy higher and higher. There was nothing in this of which complaint could be made by the Dutch Government, but nevertheless they gave encouragement to their East and West India Companies to raise trouble. Their East India Company refused to hand over the Island, and laid great limitations as to the places at which our merchants might trade in India. The other Company acted in the same manner, and lawlessly took possession of Cape Coast Castle, belonging to our English Company.

"The Duke of York, who was patron and governor of our African Company, sent Sir Robert Holmes with four frigates to Guinea to make reprisals. He captured a place from the Dutch and named it James's Fort, and then, proceeding to the river Gambia, he turned out the Dutch traders there and built a fort. A year ago, as the Dutch still held Cape Coast Castle, Sir Robert was sent out again with orders to take it by force, and on the way he overhauled a Dutch ship and found she carried a letter of secret instructions from the Dutch Government to the West India Company to take the English Fort at Cormantin. Seeing that the Hollanders, although professing friendship, were thus treacherously inclined, he judged himself justified in exceeding the commission he had received, and on his way south he touched at Cape Verde. There he first captured two Dutch ships and then attacked their forts on the Island of Gorse and captured them, together with a ship lying under their guns.

"In the fort he found a great quantity of goods ready to be shipped. He loaded his own vessels, and those that he had captured, with the merchandise, and carried it to Sierra Leone. Then he attacked the Dutch fort of St. George del Mena, the strongest on the coast, but failed there; but he soon afterwards captured Cape Coast Castle, though, as the gentlemen said, a mightily strong place. Then he sailed across to America, and, as you know, captured the Dutch Settlements of New Netherlands, and changed the name into that of New York. He did this not so much out of reprisal for the misconduct of the Dutch in Africa, but because the land was ours by right, having been discovered by the Cabots and taken possession of in the name of King Henry VII., and our title always maintained until the Dutch seized it thirty years ago.

"Then the Dutch sent orders to De Ruyter, who commanded the fleet which was in the Mediterranean, to sail away privately and to make reprisals on the Coast of Guinea and elsewhere. He first captured several of our trading forts, among them that of Cormantin, taking great quantities of goods belonging to our Company; he then sailed to Barbadoes, where he was beaten off by the forts. Then he captured twenty of our ships off Newfoundland, and so returned to Holland, altogether doing damage, as the House of Commons told His Majesty, to the extent of eight hundred thousand pounds. All this time the Dutch had been secretly preparing for war, which they declared in January, which has forced us to do the same, although we delayed a month in hopes that some accommodation might be arrived at. I think, father, that is all that he told us, though there were many details that I do not remember."

"And very well told, lass, truly. I wonder that your giddy head should have taken in so much matter. Of course, now you tell them over, I have heard these things before—the wrong that the Dutch did our Company by seizing their post at Cape Coast, and the reprisals that Sir Robert Holmes took upon them with our Company's ships—but they made no great mark on my memory, for I was just taking over my father's work when the first expedition took place. At any rate, none can say that we have gone into this war unjustly, seeing that the Dutch began it, altogether without cause, by first attacking our trading posts."

"It seems to me, Captain Dave," John Wilkes said, "that it has been mighty like the war that our English buccaneers waged against the Spaniards in the West Indies, while the two nations were at peace at home."