"A great dog sat on his tail and stared into the fire. A few children mingled in this orgy. The stolen child wept and wailed; another, a bouncing boy of four, was seated with dangling legs on too high a bench, the table reaching just to his chin, and said not a word; a third was engaged in spreading over the table with his fingers the tallow from a GUTTERING candle.

Guttering here means the candle has too much melted wax, not hot enough to burn readily, so that flame repeatedly goes out, lights again, smokes a lot. I wonder what the etymology is.