Instinctively avoiding this, and going round it, he looked
in at the window. At first, he thought that there was no one
there, and that the blaze was reddening only the old beams in the
ceiling and the dark walls; but peering in more narrowly, he saw
the object of his search coiled asleep before it on the floor. He
passed quickly to the door, opened it, and went in.
The creature lay in such a fiery heat, that, as the Chemist stooped
to rouse him, it scorched his head. So soon as he was touched, the
boy, not half awake, clutching his rags together with the instinct
of flight upon him, half rolled and half ran into a distant corner
of the room, where, heaped upon the ground, he struck his foot out
to defend himself.
"Get up!" said the Chemist. "You have not forgotten me?"
"You let me alone!" returned the boy. "This is the woman's house -
not yours."
The Chemist's steady eye controlled him somewhat, or inspired him
with enough submission to be raised upon his feet, and looked at.
"Who washed them, and put those bandages where they were bruised
and cracked?" asked the Chemist, pointing to their altered state.
"The woman did."
"And is it she who has made you cleaner in the face, too?"
"Yes, the woman."
Redlaw asked these questions to attract his eyes towards himself,
and with the same intent now held him by the chin, and threw his
wild hair back, though he loathed to touch him.
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