There was a feeble lamp at no great distance; the only one in the place, which was a kind of square yard, but sufficient to show how poor and mean it was.To this, the figure beckoned them; at the same time drawing within its rays, as if to show that it had no desire to conceal itself or take them at an advantage.
The form was that of a man, miserably clad and begrimed with smoke, which, perhaps by its contrast with the natural colour of his skin, made him look paler than he really was.That he was naturally of a very wan and pallid aspect, however, his hollow cheeks, sharp features, and sunken eyes, no less than a certain look of patient endurance, sufficiently testified.His voice was harsh by nature, but not brutal; and though his face, besides possessing the characteristics already mentioned, was overshadowed by a quantity of long dark hair, its expression was neither ferocious nor bad.
'How came you to think of resting there?' he said.'Or how,' he added, looking more attentively at the child, 'do you come to want a place of rest at this time of night?'
'Our misfortunes,' the grandfather answered, 'are the cause.'
'Do you know,' said the man, looking still more earnestly at Nell, 'how wet she is, and that the damp streets are not a place for her?'
'I know it well, God help me,' he replied.'What can I do!'
The man looked at Nell again, and gently touched her garments, from which the rain was running off in little streams.'I can give you warmth,' he said, after a pause; 'nothing else.Such lodging as Ihave, is in that house,' pointing to the doorway from which he had emerged, 'but she is safer and better there than here.The fire is in a rough place, but you can pass the night beside it safely, if you'll trust yourselves to me.You see that red light yonder?'
They raised their eyes, and saw a lurid glare hanging in the dark sky; the dull reflection of some distant fire.
'It's not far,' said the man.'Shall I take you there? You were going to sleep upon cold bricks; I can give you a bed of warm ashes --nothing better.'
Without waiting for any further reply than he saw in their looks, he took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.
Carrying her as tenderly, and as easily too, as if she had been an infant, and showing himself both swift and sure of foot, he led the way through what appeared to be the poorest and most wretched quarter of the town; and turning aside to avoid the overflowing kennels or running waterspouts, but holding his course, regardless of such obstructions, and making his way straight through them.
They had proceeded thus, in silence, for some quarter of an hour, and had lost sight of the glare to which he had pointed, in the dark and narrow ways by which they had come, when it suddenly burst upon them again, streaming up from the high chimney of a building close before them.
'This is the place,' he said, pausing at a door to put Nell down and take her hand.'Don't be afraid.There's nobody here will harm you.'
It needed a strong confidence in this assurance to induce them to enter, and what they saw inside did not diminish their apprehension and alarm.In a large and lofty building, supported by pillars of iron, with great black apertures in the upper walls, open to the external air; echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers and roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal plunged in water, and a hundred strange unearthly noises never heard elsewhere; in this gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame and smoke, dimly and fitfully seen, flushed and tormented by the burning fires, and wielding great weapons, a faulty blow from any one of which must have crushed some workman's skull, a number of men laboured like giants.Others, reposing upon heaps of coals or ashes, with their faces turned to the black vault above, slept or rested from their toil.Others again, opening the white-hot furnace-doors, cast fuel on the flames, which came rushing and roaring forth to meet it, and licked it up like oil.Others drew forth, with clashing noise, upon the ground, great sheets of glowing steel, emitting an insupportable heat, and a dull deep light like that which reddens in the eyes of savage beasts.
Through these bewildering sights and deafening sounds, their conductor led them to where, in a dark portion of the building, one furnace burnt by night and day--so, at least, they gathered from the motion of his lips, for as yet they could only see him speak:
not hear him.The man who had been watching this fire, and whose task was ended for the present, gladly withdrew, and left them with their friend, who, spreading Nell's little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and showing her where she could hang her outer-clothes to dry, signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep.For himself, he took his station on a rugged mat before the furnace-door, and resting his chin upon his hands, watched the flame as it shone through the iron chinks, and the white ashes as they fell into their bright hot grave below.
The warmth of her bed, hard and humble as it was, combined with the great fatigue she had undergone, soon caused the tumult of the place to fall with a gentler sound upon the child's tired ears, and was not long in lulling her to sleep.The old man was stretched beside her, and with her hand upon his neck she lay and dreamed.
