"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.