WHEN LONDON BURNED




CHAPTER I

FATHERLESS


Lad stood looking out of the dormer window in a scantily furnished
attic in the high-pitched roof of a house in Holborn, in September
1664. Numbers of persons were traversing the street below, many of
them going out through the bars, fifty yards away, into the fields
beyond, where some sports were being held that morning, while country
people were coming in with their baskets from the villages of
Highgate and Hampstead, Tyburn and Bayswater. But the lad noted
nothing that was going on; his eyes were filled with tears, and his
thoughts were in the little room behind him; for here, coffined in
readiness for burial, lay the body of his father.

Sir Aubrey Shenstone had not been a good father in any sense of the
word. He had not been harsh or cruel, but he had altogether neglected
his son. Beyond the virtues of loyalty and courage, he possessed few
others. He had fought, as a young man, for Charles, and even among
the Cavaliers who rode behind Prince Rupert was noted for reckless
bravery. When, on the fatal field of Worcester, the last hopes of the
Royalists were crushed, he had effected his escape to France and