35

Half undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old man’s bedside, clasped him by the wrist, and roused him from his sleep.

“What’s this?” he cried, fixing his eyes upon her spectral face.

“I have had a dreadful dream,” said the child. “A dreadful, horrible dream. I have had it once before. It is a dream of grey-haired men like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing sleepers of their gold. Up, up!”

The old man folded his hands like one who prays.

“Oh, grandfather, this dream is too real,” said the child, “I cannot sleep, I cannot stay here, I cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come. Up! We must fly. There is no time to lose; I will not lose one minute. Up! And away with me!”

“Tonight?” murmured the old man.

“Yes, tonight,” replied the child. “Tomorrow night will be too late. The dream will have come again. Up!”

The old man rose from his bed: his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat of fear. He was ready to follow her. She took him by the hand and led him on. She took him to her own chamber, and gathered together the things she had, and hung her basket on her arm. The old man took his wallet from her hands, too.

Through the strait streets, and narrow crooked outskirts, their trembling feet passed quickly. Up the hill, crowned by the old grey castle, they toiled with rapid steps, and had not once looked behind.

36.

The old man was subdued and abashed, he seemed to crouch before her, as if in the presence of some superior creature. The child herself was inspired with an energy and confidence she had never known.

“I have saved him,” she thought. “I will remember that.”

The moon went down, the stars grew pale and dim, and morning, cold as they, slowly approached. Nell watched grandfather with untiring eyes. At last they slept side by side.

A confused sound of voices awoke her. A man of rough appearance was standing over them, and two of his companions were looking on, from a long heavy boat which had come close to the bank while they were sleeping.

“Holloa!” said the man roughly “What’s the matter here?”

“We were only asleep, sir,” said Nell. “We have been walking all night.”

“Where are you going?”

Nell faltered, and pointed towards the West.

“You may go with us if you like,” replied one of those in the boat. “We’re going to the same place.”

The child hesitated for a moment. The boat came close to the bank, and before she had had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal.

The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes shaded by trees. Their way lay, for the most part, through the low grounds, and open plains.

By this time it was night again, and though the child felt cold, her anxious thoughts were far from her own suffering or uneasiness. Her grandfather lay sleeping safely at her side, and the crime to which his madness urged him, was not committed. That was her comfort.

She saw the face of the man on deck, who was the sentimental stage of drunkenness.

“You’ve got a very pretty voice, a very soft eye, and a very strong memory,” said this gentleman; “Let me hear a song this minute.”

“I don’t think I know one, sir,” returned Nell.

“You know a lot of them,” said the man. “Let me hear one of them. Give me a song this minute.”

Trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him a song which she had learned in happier times. He began to sing too, and the noise of this vocal performance awakened the other man. A chorus was maintained not only by the two men together, but also by the third man. In this way, the tired and exhausted child was singing all night long.

At length the morning dawned. The water had become thicker and dirtier; other barges passed them frequently. The boat floated into the wharf. The child and her grandfather passed through a dirty lane into a crowded street.

37

Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, with fewer people about them, but with the same sense of solitude in their own breasts, and the same indifference from all around. The lights in the streets and shops made them feel yet more desolate, night and darkness seemed to come on faster. Shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child walked on.

Why had they ever come to this noisy town? They were but an atom, here, in a mountain heap of misery. Moreover, grandfather began to demand that they should return. Being penniless, they retraced their steps through the deserted streets, and went back to the wharf. But here they were disappointed, for the gate was closed.

“We must sleep in the open air tonight, dear,” said the child in a weak voice; “and tomorrow we will try to earn our bread.”

“Why did you bring me here?” returned the old man fiercely. “I cannot bear these eternal streets. We came from a quiet part. Why did you force me to leave it?”

“Because I don’t want that dream come true,” said the child, with a momentary firmness; “and we must live among poor people, or it will come again. Dear grandfather, you are old and weak, I know; but look at me. I never complain, but I have some suffering indeed.”

“Ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!” cried the old man, clasping his hands.

“Dear, 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. There’s comfort in that. And here’s a deep old doorway very dark, but quite dry, and warm too, for the wind don’t blow in here… What’s that?”

She recoiled from a black figure which came suddenly out of the dark recess in which they were about to take refuge, and stood still, looking at them.

“Speak again,” it said; “do I know you?”

“No,” replied the child timidly; “we are strangers, we have no money for a night’s lodging, we were going to rest here.”

The figure beckoned them. The man was miserably clad and begrimed with smoke.

“Why do you think of resting there?” he said. “Why do you 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,” grandfather 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. It is safer and better there than here. You can pass the night beside a fire. You see that red light yonder?”

They saw a lurid glare; 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.”

He took Nell in his arms. He led the way through the poorest and most wretched quarter of the town.

“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.”

In a large and lofty building, supported by pillars of iron, with great black apertures in the upper walls, open to the external air; in this gloomy place, moving like demons, a number of men laboured like giants. They opened the white-hot furnace-doors and cast fuel on the flames.

The man spread Nell’s little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep.

38

It was yet night when she awoke. She lay in the state between sleeping and waking. The man looked inquiringly into her face.

“See there,” he said. “That’s my friend.”

“The fire?” said the child.

“Yes,” the man answered. “We talk and think together, all night long.”

The child glanced quickly at him in her surprise.

“It’s like a book to me,” he said, “the only book I ever learned to read. It’s music, for I know its voice. 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 bent down to listen to his words.

“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 here. She worked herself to death, the fire told me. I suppose it was true. I have always believed it. The fire nursed me, the same fire. It’s always the same.”

“You are fond of it?” said the child.

“Of course I am. My father died before it, I remember, why it didn’t help him? When I saw you in the street tonight, you made me wish to bring you to the fire. 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, returned to his seat. He remained motionless as a statue. The child continued to watch him for a little time, but soon slept on the heap of ashes, slept as peacefully as if the room had been a palace chamber.

When she awoke again, broad day was shining through the lofty openings in the walls. The man parted his breakfast a scanty mess of coffee and some coarse bread with the child and her grandfather, and inquired whether they were going. She told him that they were looking some distant country place remote from towns or even other villages, and inquired what road 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.

“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.”

“We are here and must go on,” said the child boldly. “If you can direct us, do. But do not try to stop us.”

The man showed them, then, by which road they must leave the town, and what course they should hold. Pressing her hand, he left in it two old, battered penny-pieces.

And thus they separated; the child lead her grandfather from guilt and shame.