It was the dead time of the night, and all was quiet. Now and then a
drowsy watchman's footsteps sounded on the pavement, or the lamplighter
on his rounds went flashing past, leaving behind a little track of smoke
mingled with glowing morsels of his hot red link. He hid himself even
from these partakers of his lonely walk, and, shrinking in some arch or
doorway while they passed, issued forth again when they were gone and so
pursued his solitary way.
To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan
and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to
the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old
barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things--but not
so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and
sleepers are by thousands; a houseless rejected creature. To pace
the echoing stones from hour to hour, counting the dull chimes of the
clocks; to watch the lights twinkling in chamber windows, to think what
happy forgetfulness each house shuts in; that here are children coiled
together in their beds, here youth, here age, here poverty, here wealth,
all equal in their sleep, and all at rest; to have nothing in common
with the slumbering world around, not even sleep, Heaven's gift to
all its creatures, and be akin to nothing but despair; to feel, by the
wretched contrast with everything on every hand, more utterly alone and
cast away than in a trackless desert; this is a kind of suffering, on
which the rivers of great cities close full many a time, and which the
solitude in crowds alone awakens.
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