A few moments before his interview with the thrifty and respectable Mrs. Gruppins, Haldane had supposed himself too weary to drag one foot after the other in search of another resting-place; and therefore his eager hope that that obdurate female might not be gifted with the same quality of "in'ards" which Pat M'Cabe ascribed to Mr. Arnot. He had, indeed, nearly reached the limit of endurance, for had he been in his best and most vigorous condition, a day which taxed so terribly both body and mind would have drained his vitality to the point of exhaustion. As it was, the previous night's debauch told against him like a term of illness. He had since taken food insufficiently and irregularly, and was, therefore, in no condition to meet the extraordinary demands of the ordeal through which he was passing. Mental distress, moreover, is far more wearing than physical effort, and his anguish of mind had risen several times during the day almost to frenzy.
In spite of all this, the sharp and pitiless tongue of Mrs. Gruppins goaded him again to the verge of desperation, and he strode rapidly and aimlessly away, through the night and storm, with a wilder tempest raging in his breast. But the gust of feeling died away as suddenly as it had arisen, and left him ill and faint. A telegraph pole was near, and he leaned against it for support.
"Move on," growled a passing policeman.
"Will you do me a kindness?" asked Haldane; "I am poor and sick--a stranger. Tell me where I can hire a bed for a small sum."
The policeman directed him down a side street, saying, "You can get a bed at No. 13, and no questions asked."
There was unspeakable comfort in the last assurance, for it now seemed that he could hope to find a refuge only in places where "no questions were asked."
With difficulty the weary youth reached the house, and by paying a small extra sum was able to obtain a wretched little room to himself; but never did storm-tossed and endangered sailors enter a harbor's quiet waters with a greater sense of relief than did Haldane as he crept up into this squalid nook, which would at least give him a little respite from the world's terrible scorn.
What a priceless gift for the unhappy, the unfortunate--yes, and for the guilty--is sleep! Many seem to think of the body only as a clog, impeding mental action--as a weight, chaining the spirit down. Were the mind, in its activity, independent of the body--were the wounded spirit unable to forget its pain--could the guilty conscience sting incessantly--then the chief human industry would come to be the erection of asylums for the insane. But by an unfathomable mystery the tireless regal spirit has been blended with the flesh and blood of its servant, the body. In heaven, where there is neither sin nor pain, even the body becomes spiritual; but on earth, where it so often happens, as in the case of poor Haldane, that to think and to remember is torture, it is a blessed thing that the body, formed from the earth, often becomes heavy as earth, and rests upon the spirit for a few hours at least, like the clods with which we fill the grave.