PART I.




BOOK THE FIRST.

_NIGHT NOT SO BLACK AS MAN_.




CHAPTER I.

PORTLAND BILL.


An obstinate north wind blew without ceasing over the mainland of
Europe, and yet more roughly over England, during all the month of
December, 1689, and all the month of January, 1690. Hence the disastrous
cold weather, which caused that winter to be noted as "memorable to the
poor," on the margin of the old Bible in the Presbyterian chapel of the
Nonjurors in London. Thanks to the lasting qualities of the old
monarchical parchment employed in official registers, long lists of poor
persons, found dead of famine and cold, are still legible in many local
repositories, particularly in the archives of the Liberty of the Clink,
in the borough of Southwark, of Pie Powder Court (which signifies Dusty
Feet Court), and in those of Whitechapel Court, held in the village of
Stepney by the bailiff of the Lord of the Manor. The Thames was frozen
over--a thing which does not happen once in a century, as the ice forms