Chapter X.
A BED OF ASHES.
“We must sleep in the open air to-night, dear,” said Nell, in a weak voice, “and to-morrow we will beg our way to some quiet part of the country and try to earn our bread in very humble work.”
“Ah! poor, houseless, motherless child,” cried the old man, clasping his hands, and gazing as if for the first time upon her white face, her torn dress, and swollen feet; “has all my care brought her to this at last? Was I a happy man once, and have I lost happiness and all I had for this?”
“If we were in the country now,” said the child, as cheerfully as she could, “we should find some good old tree, stretching out his green arms as if he loved us, and nodding as if he would have us fall asleep; thinking of him while he watched.
“Please God,” she went on, “we shall be there soon—to-morrow, or the next day at the farthest; and in the meantime let us think, dear, that it was a good thing we came here; for we are lost in the crowd and hurry of this place, and if any cruel people should pursue us, they could surely never trace us farther. There’s comfort in that. And here’s a deep old doorway—very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind does not blow in here. What’s that?”
Uttering a half shriek, she fell back before a black figure which came out of the door-way where they were about to take refuge, and stood still, looking at them.
“Speak again,” it said; “do I know that voice?”
“No,” replied the child; “we are strangers, and having no money for a night’s lodging, we were going to rest here.”
There was a 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 man beckoned them, and soon they stood looking at each other in the light of its rays.
The stranger was poorly clad and very dirty. His voice was harsh, but though his face was half hidden with long, dark hair, it was neither unkind nor bad.
“How came you to think of resting here?” he said. “Or how,” he added, looking closely at the child, “do you come to want a place of rest at this time of night?”
“Our misfortunes,” the old man said, “are the cause.”
“Do you know,” said the man, looking still more closely 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 dress, 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 I have is in that house”—pointing to the doorway from which he had come—”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 in the dark sky the dull light 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 reply he took Nell in his arms, and bade the old man follow.
“This is the place,” he said, after a long walk, pausing at a door to put Nell down and take her hand. “Don’t be afraid; there’s nobody here will harm you.”
With some fear and alarm they entered a large and lofty building, echoing to the roof with the beating of hammers and roar of furnaces, mingled with the hissing of red-hot metal plunged in water. In this gloomy place, moving like demons among the flame and smoke, a number of men worked like giants. Others, lying upon heaps of coals or ashes, slept or rested from their toil. Others again, opening the white-hot furnace doors, cast fuel on the flames, which came rushing forth to meet it, and licked it up like oil. Others drew forth, upon the ground, great sheets of glowing, red-hot steel.
Through this strange place their new friend led them to where one furnace burnt by night and day. The man who had been watching this fire, and whose task was ended for the present, gladly withdrew, and left them with their friend. He at once spread 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. Then he took his station on a ragged 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, soon caused the noise 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.
It was yet night when she awoke, nor did she know for how long or 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 heat, by some of the workmen’s clothes; and glancing at their friend, saw that he still sat looking towards the fire, and keeping so very quiet that he did not even seem to breathe.
Nell lay in the state between sleeping and waking, looking so long at him that at length she almost feared he had died as he sat there; and softly rising and drawing close to him, she whispered in his ear.
He moved at once, and looked into her face.
“I feared you were ill,” she said. “The other men are all moving, and you are so very quiet.”
“They leave me to myself,” he replied. “They know my way. 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 for 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 away 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. But 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 once more, returned to his seat. The child watched him for a little time, but soon gave way 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 and her resting-place a bed of down.
When she woke again, broad day was shining through the openings in the walls. The noise was still going on, and the fires were burning fiercely as before; for few changes of night and day brought rest or quiet there.
Her friend shared his breakfast—coffee, and some coarse bread—with the child and her grandfather, and asked where they were going. She told him that they sought some distant country place, and asked what road they would do best to take.
“I know little of the country,” he said, shaking his head; “but there are such places yonder.”
“And far from here?” said Nell.
“Ay, 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.
“Rough people—paths never made for little feet like yours—a dismal 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 stop us. 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; I am sure you would not.”
“God forbid, if it is so!” said the man, glancing from the child to her grandfather, who hung his head and bent his eyes upon the ground. “I’ll show 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 take when they had gained it. Then the child, with heartfelt thanks, tore herself away, and stayed to hear no more.
In all their wanderings they had never longed so much as now for the pure air of the open country; no, not even on that morning when, deserting their old home, they gave themselves up to the mercies of a strange world.
“Two days and nights!” thought the child. “He said two days and nights we should have to spend among such scenes as these. Oh, if we live to reach the country once again, if we get clear of these dreadful places, though it is only to lie down and die, with what a grateful heart I shall thank God for so much mercy!”
“We shall be very slow to-day, dear,” she said as they went wearily through the streets; “my feet are so sore, and I have pains in all my limbs from the wet of yesterday. I saw that our friend looked at us and thought of that when he said how long we should be upon the road.”
That night she lay down with nothing between her and the sky, and, with no fear for herself, for she was past it now, put up a prayer for the poor old man.
A penny loaf was all they had eaten that day. It was very little, but even hunger was forgotten in the peaceful feeling that crept over Nell. She lay down very gently, and with a quiet smile upon her face, fell into a light slumber.
The next morning came, and with it came to Nell a dull feeling that she was very ill. She had no wish to eat. Her grandfather ate greedily, which she was glad to see.
Their way lay through the same scenes as on the previous day. There was the same thick air, the same blighted ground, the same misery and poverty.
Evening was drawing on, but had not closed in, when they came to another busy town. After humbly asking for help at some few doors, and having been refused, they agreed to make their way out of the place as speedily as they could.
They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the child now felt that the time was close at hand when she could bear no more. There appeared before them at this moment, going in the same direction as themselves, a traveller on foot, who, with a bag on his back, leaned upon a stout stick as he walked and read from a book which he held in his other hand.
It was not an easy matter to come up with him and ask his aid, for he walked fast, and was some little distance before them. But soon he stopped to look more closely at his book. Then the child shot on before her grandfather, and, going close to the stranger, began in a few faint words to beg his help. He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, gave a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.
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