It was yet night when she awoke, nor did she know how long, or for how short a time, she had slept.But she found herself protected, both from any cold air that might find its way into the building, and from the scorching heat, by some of the workmen's clothes; and glancing at their friend saw that he sat in exactly the same attitude, looking with a fixed earnestness of attention towards the fire, and keeping so very still that he did not even seem to breathe.She lay in the state between sleeping and waking, looking so long at his motionless figure that at length she almost feared he had died as he sat there; and softly rising and drawing close to him, ventured to whisper in his ear.
He moved, and glancing from her to the place she had lately occupied, as if to assure himself that it was really the child so near him, looked inquiringly into her face.
'I feared you were ill,' she said.'The other men are all in motion, and you are so very quiet.'
'They leave me to myself,' he replied.'They know my humour.They laugh at me, but don't harm me in it.See yonder there--that's my friend.'
'The fire?' said the child.
'It has been alive as long as I have,' the man made answer.'We talk and think together all night long.'
The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise, but he had turned his eyes in their former direction, and was musing as before.
'It's like a book to me,' he said--'the only book I ever learned to read; and many an old story it tells me.It's music, for I should know its voice among a thousand, and there are other voices in its roar.It has its pictures too.You don't know how many strange faces and different scenes I trace in the red-hot coals.It's my memory, that fire, and shows me all my life.'
The child, bending down to listen to his words, could not help remarking with what brightened eyes he continued to speak and muse.
'Yes,' he said, with a faint smile, 'it was the same when I was quite a baby, and crawled about it, till I fell asleep.My father watched it then.'
'Had you no mother?' asked the child.
'No, she was dead.Women work hard in these parts.She worked herself to death they told me, and, as they said so then, the fire has gone on saying the same thing ever since.I suppose it was true.I have always believed it.'
'Were you brought up here, then?' said the child.
'Summer and winter,' he replied.'Secretly at first, but when they found it out, they let him keep me here.So the fire nursed me--the same fire.It has never gone out.'
'You are fond of it?' said the child.
'Of course I am.He died before it.I saw him fall down--just there, where those ashes are burning now--and wondered, Iremember, why it didn't help him.'
'Have you been here ever since?' asked the child.
'Ever since I came to watch it; but there was a while between, and a very cold dreary while it was.It burned all the time though, and roared and leaped when I came back, as it used to do in our play days.You may guess, from looking at me, what kind of child I was, but for all the difference between us I was a child, and when I saw you in the street to-night, you put me in mind of myself, as I was after he died, and made me wish to bring you to the fire.I thought of those old times again, when I saw you sleeping by it.You should be sleeping now.Lie down again, poor child, lie down again!'
With that, he led her to her rude couch, and covering her with the clothes with which she had found herself enveloped when she woke, returned to his seat, whence he moved no more unless to feed the furnace, but remained motionless as a statue.The child continued to watch him for a little time, but soon yielded to the drowsiness that came upon her, and, in the dark strange place and on the heap of ashes, slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace chamber, and the bed, a bed of down.
When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty openings in the walls, and, stealing in slanting rays but midway down, seemed to make the building darker than it had been at night.
The clang and tumult were still going on, and the remorseless fires were burning fiercely as before; for few changes of night and day brought rest or quiet there.
Her friend parted his breakfast--a scanty mess of coffee and some coarse bread--with the child and her grandfather, and inquired whither they were going.She told him that they sought some distant country place remote from towns or even other villages, and with a faltering tongue inquired what road they would do best to take.
'I know little of the country,' he said, shaking his head, 'for such as I, pass all our lives before our furnace doors, and seldom go forth to breathe.But there are such places yonder.'
'And far from here?' said Nell.
'Aye surely.How could they be near us, and be green and fresh?
The road lies, too, through miles and miles, all lighted up by fires like ours--a strange black road, and one that would frighten you by night.'
'We are here and must go on,' said the child boldly; for she saw that the old man listened with anxious ears to this account.
'Rough people--paths never made for little feet like yours--a dismal blighted way--is there no turning back, my child!'
'There is none,' cried Nell, pressing forward.'If you can direct us, do.If not, pray do not seek to turn us from our purpose.
Indeed you do not know the danger that we shun, and how right and true we are in flying from it, or you would not try to stop us, Iam sure you would not.'
'God forbid, if it is so!' said their uncouth protector, glancing from the eager child to her grandfather, who hung his head and bent his eyes upon the ground.'I'll direct you from the door, the best I can.I wish I could do more.'
He showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town, and what course they should hold when they had gained it.He lingered so long on these instructions, that the child, with a fervent blessing, tore herself away, and stayed to hear no more.
But, before they had reached the corner of the lane, the man came running after them, and, pressing her hand, left something in it--two old, battered, smoke-encrusted penny pieces.Who knows but they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels, as golden gifts that have been chronicled on tombs?
And thus they separated; the child to lead her sacred charge farther from guilt and shame; the labourer to attach a fresh interest to the spot where his guests had slept, and read new histories in his furnace fire.
