sympathy, while the canopy of white smoke bellied overhead. Nor were
those humane sentiments silent; and the rough seemed to be even more
overcome than the others: no brains were required to pity this poor
fellow now; and so strong an appeal to their hearts, through their
senses, roused their good impulses and rare sensibilities. Oh, it was
strange to hear good and kindly sentiments come out in the Dash dialect.

"It's a ---- shame!"

"There lies a good workman done for by some ---- thief, that wasn't fit
to blow his bellows, ---- him!"

"Say he WAS a cockney, he was always ---- civil."

"And life's as sweet to him as to any man in Hillsborough."

"Hold your ---- tongue, he's coming to."

Henry did recover his wits enough to speak; and what do you think was
his first word?

He clasped his hands together, and said,--"MY MOTHER! OH, DON'T LET HER
KNOW!"

This simple cry went through many a rough heart; a loud gulp or two were
heard soon after, and more than one hard and coaly cheek was channeled
by sudden tears. But now a burly figure came rolling in; they drew back
and silenced each other.--"The Doctor!" This was the remarkable person
they called Jack Doubleface. Nature had stuck a philosophic head, with
finely-cut features, and a mouth brimful of finesse, on to a corpulent
and ungraceful body, that yawed from side to side as he walked.

The man of art opened with two words. He looked up at the white cloud,
which was now floating away; sniffed the air, and said, "Gunpowder!"
Then he looked down at Little, and said, "Ah!" half dryly, half sadly.
Indeed several sentences of meaning condensed themselves into that
simple interjection. At this moment, some men, whom curiosity had drawn
to Henry's forge, came back to say the forge had been blown up, and "the
bellows torn limb from jacket, and the room strewed with ashes."

The doctor laid a podgy hand on the prisoner's wrist: the touch was
light, though the fingers were thick and heavy. The pulse, which had
been very low, was now galloping and bounding frightfully. "Fetch him a
glass of brandy-and-water," said Dr. Amboyne. (There were still doctors
in Hillsborough, though not in London, who would have had him bled on
the spot.)

"Now, then, a surgeon! Which of you lads operates on the eye, in these
works?"

A lanky file-cutter took a step forward. "I am the one that takes the
motes out of their eyes."

"Then be good enough to show me his eye."

The file-cutt