Chapter 55
John Willet, left alone in his dismantled bar, continued to sit staring
about him; awake as to his eyes, certainly, but with all his powers of
reason and reflection in a sound and dreamless sleep. He looked round
upon the room which had been for years, and was within an hour ago, the
pride of his heart; and not a muscle of his face was moved. The night,
without, looked black and cold through the dreary gaps in the casement;
the precious liquids, now nearly leaked away, dripped with a hollow
sound upon the floor; the Maypole peered ruefully in through the broken
window, like the bowsprit of a wrecked ship; the ground might have
been the bottom of the sea, it was so strewn with precious fragments.
Currents of air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and creaked upon
their hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made long
winding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered idly
in the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying empty in
dark corners, seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose jollity had
departed, and who could kindle with a friendly glow no more. John saw
this desolation, and yet saw it not.
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