After a little, but most good-humored, quizzing about my present occupation and future prospects, they, with far more politeness than might be expected, turned the conversation upon other matters, and kindly permitted me to throw in from time to time my observations,—remarks which I could see, from their novelty, at least, seemed often to surprise them.
At length the hour of separating arrived, and I arose to bid the company good-night, which I performed with a very fair imitation of that quiet ease I had often studied in the young guardsmen about town.
“What do you bet that he has neither home to shelter him, nor bed to sleep on, this night?” whispered one to his neighbor.
“What are you writing there, Cox?” said another, to the keen-eyed man, who was pencilling something on a card.
“There, that's my address, my boy,—12, Stafford Street: Jeremiah Cox. Come to me about ten to-morrow.”
Another, while he was speaking, made an effort to slip a half-crown into my hand,—a measure I felt it becoming to decline with a prompt, but courteous, refusal. Indeed, I had so identified myself with the part I was performing that I flung down my only sixpence on the table for the waiter, and, with a last salutation to the honorable company, walked out. I have a perfect memory of every circumstance of the evening, and I recollect that my swaggering exit was as free from any semblance of concern or care as though a carriage waited for me outside to convey me to a luxurious home!
It has often been a fancy of mine through life to pass the entire of a summer night out of door; to wander either through the moonlit roads of some picturesque country, or in the still more solitary streets of a great city. I have always felt on these occasions as though one were “stealing a march” upon the sleeping world,—gaining so many more hours of thought and reflection, which the busy conflict of life renders so often difficult.
The hours of the night seem to typify so many stages of existence,—only reversing the natural order of age, and making the period of deep reflection precede the era of sanguine hope; for if the solemn closing in of the darkness suggests musing, so do the rosy tints and fresh air of breaking day inspire the warm hopefulness of youth. If “the daylight sinking” invites the secret communing of the heart, “the dawning of morn” glows with energetic purpose and bold endeavor.
To come back to myself. I left the tavern without a thought whither I should turn my steps. It was a calm night, with a starry sky and a mild, genial air, so that to pass the hours until morning without shelter was no great privation. One only resolve I had formed,—never to go back to Betty's. I felt that I had sojourned over long in such companionship; it was now time some other, and more upward, path should open before me.
Following the course of the Liffey, I soon reached the quay called the North Wall, and at last arrived at the bluff extremity which looks out upon the opening of the river into the Bay of Dublin. The great expanse was in deep shadow, but so calm the sea that the two lighthouses were reflected in long columns of light in the tranquil water. The only sound audible was the low, monotonous plash of the sea against the wall, or the grating noise of a chain cable, as the vessel it held surged slowly with the tide. The sounds had something plaintive in them, that soon imparted a tone of sadness to my mind; but it was a melancholy not unpleasing; and I sat down upon a rude block of stone, weaving strange fancies of myself and my future.