Once more it is a Sunday evening, and once more we are at Twickenham.
For at Twickenham the family have now made their home; they never, after
the Plague Year, resided in the city. More than twelve months have
passed. We last saw them on July 16, 1665; this is Sunday, September 2,
1666. And this Sunday has been as eventful and as memorable as that.
For, just as the family were assembling at the breakfast table, Henry,
the elder of the two boys, burst into the room, exclaiming excitedly:
'Father, the city is on fire!'
It was true! London was one great sea of flame! In the afternoon the
father and the two sons drove as far as the Borough; it was as near as
they could get to the raging conflagration. And what a sight confronted
them! Immense tongues of crimson shot up from the burning city and
seemed to lick the very skies. When the clouds of smoke parted for a
moment, they saw towers falling, walls collapsing, chimneys tottering,
whilst the crash of roof after roof kept up a series of reports that
resembled the firing of artillery. Every now and again a terrific
explosion rent the air, followed immediately by an eruption of flaming
debris that looked volcanic in its weird grandeur. London seemed to be
in the grip of an angry demon that was bent on tearing it to fragments.
The fire exhibited a thousand fantastic forms; it blazed in every
conceivable hue and color; it roared and shrieked and sputtered; it
hissed and thundered and growled. A spectacle of such vivid beauty, yet
of such awful horror, had never been seen in England before. And,
somewhere within the area swept by that red, red ocean of flame, was Mr.
Petherick's warehouse containing all, or practically all, his earthly
possessions!
But that Sunday night the soul of Walter Petherick knew no such anguish
as it had known a year ago. He thought of the '_supposes_.' He read once
more the prophet's song of defiance and of triumph. He smiled to himself
as he reflected that the flames could only take the _gifts_; they could
not rob him of the _Giver_. '_Therefore_,' he said to himself, '_I will
rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my salvation_'; for 'it is a
small thing to lose the _gifts_ as long as you possess the _Giver_; the
supreme tragedy lies in losing the _Giver_ and retaining only the
_gifts_!' And that Sunday night, whilst London crackled and blazed, the
sleep of Walter Petherick was once more like the sleep of a little
child.