Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/24

14 As his knock met with no reply, the clergyman walked quietly in without invitation. The scene which met his eyes was one of indescribable squalor and misery. The room, which was some ten feet square and about six in height, contained absolutely no furniture save a rude three-legged table. The floor was rugged and sloped from one side down towards the other, as if the foundations of the house were gradually sinking; the walls and ceiling in places showed great spots of moisture, and the small window, in which several panes had been broken and were replaced by brown paper, was sheltered by no blind or curtain, and gave admittance to a draught which swept round the room almost as keenly as the wind in the open air. On the table burned a candle thrust into the broken neck of a bottle, and by its light the visitor was enabled dimly to discern the living occupants of the garret. In one corner, as far removed out of the draught of the window as possible, a few ragged clothes had been spread upon the floor, and on these lay the figure of a man in his trowsers and shirt only, his face hidden in the bundled-up coat which formed his pillow. By his side, his head resting on the man’s arm, lay a little boy, apparently some eight years old. Both were sleeping; the boy with the deep motionless sleep of utter weariness, the man with occasional groans and tosses, and now and