Page:The Laboring Classes of England.djvu/78

 had so positively been promised them while in London. This conversation seemed to look forward to close, protracted toil.

The children rested one night at Nottingham, in the warehouse of their new masters; the next day, in order to cheer their spirits a little, they were led out to see the local curiosities, which are so celebrated by bards of ancient times. The day following, they were conveyed in carts to the place that was to be their home for the next fourteen years. This place was Lowdham cotton mill, situated near a village of that name about ten miles from Nottingham, on the Surhill road. They arrived rather late in the evening.

The mill, a large and lofty edifice, being surmounted by a cupola, Smith at first mistook for a church, and expressed his opinion to that effect; this seemed to please some of the bystanders, who said he would soon know what sort of service was performed there. There was one source of consolation, he thought—it is not surrounded with large walls and strong gates, like the St. Pancras workhouse.

When the first cart, in which was young Smith, drove up to the door of the apprentice-house, which was half a mile distant from the mill, a number of villagers flocked round to see the young cocknies. One old woman said, "Eh! what a fine collection of children, see their pretty rosy cheeks." Another, shaking her head, said, "The roses will soon be out of bloom in the mill." "The Lord have mercy upon them," said a third. "They'll find no mercy here," said a fourth. In common with his comrades, Smith was greatly dismayed by these gloomy prognostications, which their guardians did all they could to check, or prevent the children hearing, hurrying them as rapidly as they could into the house.

The young strangers were conducted into a spacious