Then, he dashes
it down under the grate, with such force that the broken splinters
fly out again in a shower; and he leaves the house.
When he first emerges into the night air, nothing around him is
still or steady; nothing around him shows like what it is; he only
knows that he stands with a bare head in the midst of a blood-red
whirl, waiting to be struggled with, and to struggle to the death.
But, nothing happening, and the moon looking down upon him as if he
were dead after a fit of wrath, he holds his steam-hammer beating
head and heart, and staggers away. Then, he becomes half-conscious
of having heard himself bolted and barred out, like a dangerous
animal; and thinks what shall he do?
Some wildly passionate ideas of the river dissolve under the spell
of the moonlight on the Cathedral and the graves, and the
remembrance of his sister, and the thought of what he owes to the
good man who has but that very day won his confidence and given him
his pledge. He repairs to Minor Canon Corner, and knocks softly at
the door.
It is Mr. Crisparkle's custom to sit up last of the early
household, very softly touching his piano and practising his
favourite parts in concerted vocal music. The south wind that goes
where it lists, by way of Minor Canon Corner on a still night, is
not more subdued than Mr. Crisparkle at such times, regardful of
the slumbers of the china shepherdess.
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