Our friends were not
dainty, but even they picked their way, till they got to some steps
leading down to a small area, where a person standing would have his
head about one foot below the level of the street, and might at the
same time, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of
the cellar and the damp muddy wall right opposite. You went down
one step even from the foul area into the cellar in which a family
of human beings lived. It was very dark inside. The window-panes,
many of them, were broken and stuffed with rags, which was reason
enough for the dusky light that pervaded the place even at midday.
After the account I have given of the state of the street, no one
can be surprised that on going into the cellar inhabited by
Davenport, the smell was so foetid as almost to knock the two men
down. Quickly recovering themselves, as those inured to such things
do, they began to penetrate the thick darkness of the place, and to
see three or four little children rolling on the damp, nay wet brick
floor, through which the stagnant, filthy moisture of the street
oozed up; the fire-place was empty and black; the wife sat on her
husband's lair, and cried in the dark loneliness.
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