"
So Barton was now left alone with a little child, crying (when it
had done eating) for mammy; with a fainting, dead-like woman; and
with the sick man, whose mutterings were rising up to screams and
shrieks of agonised anxiety. He carried the woman to the fire, and
chafed her hands. He looked around for something to raise her head.
There was literally nothing but some loose bricks. However, those
he got; and taking off his coat he covered them with it as well as
he could. He pulled her feet to the fire, which now began to emit
some faint heat. He looked round for water, but the poor woman had
been too weak to drag herself out to the distant pump, and water
there was none. He snatched the child, and ran up the area-steps to
the room above, and borrowed their only saucepan with some water in
it. Then he began, with the useful skill of a working-man, to make
some gruel; and when it was hastily made, he seized a battered iron
table-spoon (kept when many other little things had been sold in a
lot, in order to feed baby), and with it he forced one or two drops
between her clenched teeth.
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