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| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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'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
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