Pursuing their course along Castle Street for about a quarter
of a mile, Gerard and Stephen turned down a street which
intersected it, and so on, through a variety of ways and
winding lanes, till they arrived at an open portion of the
town, a district where streets and squares and even rows,
disappeared, and where the tall chimneys and bulky barrack-
looking buildings that rose in all directions, clustering yet
isolated, announced that they were in the principal scene of
the industry of Mowbray. Crossing this open ground they
gained a suburb, but one of a very different description to
that in which was situate the convent where they had parted
with Sybil. This one was populous, noisy, and lighted. It
was Saturday night; the streets were thronged; an infinite
population kept swarming to and fro the close courts and
pestilential cul-de-sacs that continually communicated with
the streets by narrow archways, like the entrance of hives, so
low that you were obliged to stoop for admission: while
ascending to these same streets, from their dank and dismal
dwellings by narrow flights of steps the subterraneous nation
of the cellars poured forth to enjoy the coolness of the
summer night, and market for the day of rest.
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