“So you think I’m drunk?” said Poll; “no, I ain’t drunk, there’s a pain here,” panting to her breast, “and a swimming here,” clasping her hand to her forehead; “but I ain’t took enough to make me even half seas over. You seem a good-natured sort of a gel, and maybe ef you lend me your shoulder to lean on, I’d find a copper in my pocket for yer by-and-by.”
The child’s eyes glittered when Poll spoke of a copper.
“Yer may lean on me if yer, like, missis,” she said.
“I want yer to take me to a place called Howard’s Buildings, in Nettle Street,” said Poll. “I can’t see werry well for the giddiness in my head; and I can’t walk werry well, because I has a sort of a trembling all over me; but ef I may use your eyes, little gel, and ef you’ll be a crutch to me, why I’ll give yer thruppence, so there.”
“Howard’s Buildings,” said the child, “I never yered tell on ’em, nor of Nettle Street neither.”
“I can guide yer a bit, honey. Ef you’ll tell me the names of the streets as we pass, I’m most sure to know ’em, and I can tell yer ef we’re going right or wrong. You come close up to me, little gel, and let me lean on yer shoulder.”
The child came up as she was told, and Poll and she began a slow pilgrimage through the slums.
Poll’s head felt as giddy as ever; the pain which seemed to eat into her very life never ceased, the trembling in her legs grew greater, but still she struggled forward. As the sacrifice was in vain, and Jill was miserable without her, why she might at least go back to Howard’s Buildings. This was the only coherent thought she had. She would go back to Jill; she would kiss Jill once again.
Beyond this desire she was incapable of going. If she only kept on walking, putting one trembling foot before the other, she would at last reach the Buildings, and Jill and she would meet again. It seemed to Poll that a whole lifetime had already divided her from the girl; but now if only she could walk, the dreadful separation would come to an end.
“Can’t yer step out a bit faster, missis?” said the little gutter child. “You lean hard on me, and step out, missis; we won’t get to them Buildings—whatever you call ’em—to-night, ef you don’t step out.”