The
men drew away, and a sharp whispering fluctuated out of the darkness.
"Come," Howat Penny said sharply; "we must get back or stay out here for
the rest of the night. I don't mind admitting I'd like to be where I
could sleep." She moved forward, now tacitly taking a place behind him,
and he led the return, tramping doggedly in the shortest direction
possible.
The hollows and stream beds were filled with the ghostly mist, and
bitterly chill; the night paled slightly, diluted with grey; there was a
distant clamour of crows. They entered the Furnace tract by a path at
the base of the rise from where they had started. On the left, at a
crossing of roads, one leading to Myrtle Forge, the other a track for
the charcoal sleds, a blacksmith's open shed held a faint smoulder on
the hearth. The blast from Shadrach Furnace rose perpendicular in the
still air.
Fanny Gilkan slipped away with a murmur. Howat abandoned all thought of
returning to Myrtle Forge that night. But it was, he corrected the
conclusion, morning. The light was palpable; he could see individual
trees, the bulk of the cast-house, built directly against the Furnace;
in the illusive radiance the coal house on the hill seemed poised on top
of the other structures.
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