Heavily, listlessly, and with drooping head, old Matt walked slowly back towards the City, now stopping in a doorway, or resting leaning against a shutter; but soon to shuffle on again, as his heart seemed to whisper, "O, that it were day once more!" Tramp, tramp through the silent streets of the great wilderness. Thoughtful after a strange, numbed, weary mode, the old man made his way into Thames-street, looking hopelessly about the while for some dry sheltered spot, where, unnoticed by the police, he might coil up as hundreds do nightly in our streets, trying to forget the present as they wait for the coming of the desolate future. At last, less particular now, he was nearing the dry arch of London-bridge, and thinking of the steps as a place to rest his aching bones, when, from his half-sleepy state he suddenly roused up, for down from a turning in front came a couple of policemen with a stretcher, while, hurried and excited in her manner, her long hair lank and curl-less with the dank night wind, followed the poor girl he had seen upon the bridge, now talking earnestly to one of the constables. The new-comers did not notice Matt, and after walking onwards for a short distance, with the old man closely following, they suddenly turned down between two large piles of warehouses, along a narrow passage up which came the odour of the river borne on the moaning wind, where the rugged broken pavement was wet and slimy. There was no feeling of fatigue and misery now to bear down the old man, as, led by some impulse, he followed the police, his heart beating wildly as he glanced at the stretcher and recalled the hospital. There was something weird and strange-looking in the oil-caped figures as, seen in the misty darkness, they passed along; and the eager voice of the girl sounded hollow and echoing. Down to the river-side, where the muddy water could be heard rushing amidst the floating piers and moored barges, with a hurried whispering secret sound,--here where barge and lighter were moored closely together and steamers were buoyed, waiting for the coming day. High warehouses towered above them, with cranes jutting out, gallows-like, at intervals as if just deprived of some malefactor's body that had swung to the chain, and then dropped in the river to be swept away. Piles were driven thickly here; slimy, mysterious-looking stone steps led down into the water, right down into its secret muddy depths; and an old boat or two floated hard by, secured by small chains, which rattled backwards and forwards over their gunwales as the tide lifted, and bore them to and fro in its ebbing and flowing and eddying currents.