Some other man has got my old opinions at this
minute. That makes it worse. Somebody's longing to work me off. I know
by myself that somebody must be!'
'He'll soon have his longing,' said Hugh, resuming his walk. 'Think of
that, and be quiet.'
Although one of these men displayed, in his speech and bearing, the
most reckless hardihood; and the other, in his every word and action,
testified such an extreme of abject cowardice that it was humiliating
to see him; it would be difficult to say which of them would most have
repelled and shocked an observer. Hugh's was the dogged desperation of
a savage at the stake; the hangman was reduced to a condition little
better, if any, than that of a hound with the halter round his neck.
Yet, as Mr Dennis knew and could have told them, these were the two
commonest states of mind in persons brought to their pass. Such was the
wholesome growth of the seed sown by the law, that this kind of harvest
was usually looked for, as a matter of course.
In one respect they all agreed. The wandering and uncontrollable train
of thought, suggesting sudden recollections of things distant and long
forgotten and remote from each other--the vague restless craving for
something undefined, which nothing could satisfy--the swift flight of
the minutes, fusing themselves into hours, as if by enchantment--the
rapid coming of the solemn night--the shadow of death always upon them,
and yet so dim and faint, that objects the meanest and most trivial
started from the gloom beyond, and forced themselves upon the view--the
impossibility of holding the mind, even if they had been so disposed,
to penitence and preparation, or of keeping it to any point while one
hideous fascination tempted it away--these things were common to them
all, and varied only in their outward tokens.
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