blic-house where
shelter could be bought for the modest sum of twopence. The street
lamps were few and at long intervals, and burned behind grimy glasses
with the sickly light of oil lamps, and by this wavering light
Salisbury could make out the shadowy and vast old houses of which the
street was composed. As he passed along, hurrying, and shrinking from
the full sweep of the rain, he noticed the innumerable bell-handles,
with names that seemed about to vanish of old age graven on brass
plates beneath them, and here and there a richly carved pent-house
overhung the door, blackening with the grime of fifty years. The storm
seemed to grow more and more furious; he was wet through, and a new hat
had become a ruin, and still Oxford Street seemed as far off as ever.
It was with deep relief that the dripping man caught sight of a dark
archway which seemed to promise shelter from the rain if not from the
wind. Salisbury took up his position in the dryest corner and looked
about him; he was standing in a kind of passage contrived under part of
a house, and behind him stretched a narrow footway leading between
blank walls to regions unknown. He had stood there for some time,
vainly endeavouring to rid himself of some of his superfluous moisture,
and listening for the passing wheel of a hansom, when his attention was
aroused by a loud noise coming from the direction of the passage
behind, and growing louder as it drew nearer. In a couple of minutes he
could make out the shrill, raucous voice of a woman, threatening and
denouncing and making the very stones echo with her accents, while now
and then a man grumbled and expostulated. Though to all appearance
devoid of romance, Salisbury had some relish for street rows, and was,
indeed, somewhat of an amateur in the more amusing phases of
drunkenness; he therefore composed himself to listen and observe with
something of the air of a subscriber to grand opera. To his annoyance,
however, the tempest seemed suddenly to be composed, and he could hear
nothing but the impatient steps of the woman and the slow lurch of the
man as they came toward him. Keeping back in the shadow of the wall, he
could see the two drawing nearer; the man was evidently drunk, and had
much ado to avoid frequent collision with the wall as he tacked across
from one side to the other, like some bark beating up against a wind.
The woman was looking straight in front of her, with tears streaming
from her eyes, but sudd