"He's drunk," cried one.
"Pitch into me that way ag'in, old feller, and I'll hit you," cried another.
It was Christmas Eve, and Broadway was alive with light and motion; the streets thronged with vehicles, and the sidewalks almost blocked up with men, and women, and children; the lamps lighted, and the shops and places of amusement illuminated, as if to welcome some great conqueror. But Beverly was unconscious of the external scene. His fashionable dress, concealed by his rough overcoat, and his face hidden by his cap and red neckerchief, he staggered along, with his head down and his hands swaying from side to side. There was a roaring as of waves or of devouring flame in his ears. A red haze was before his eyes; and the scenes of his whole life came up to him at once, even as a drowning man sees all his life, in a focus, before the last struggle,—there were the persons he had known, the adventures he had experienced, the events of his boyhood, and the triumphs and shames of his libertine manhood,—all these came up to him, and confronted him as he hurried along. Three faces were always before him,—the dead face of Eugene, the pale visage of Joanna, her eyes flaming with vengeance, and,—the innocent countenance of his motherless daughter.
And thus he hurried along.
"Old fellow, the stars'll be arter you," cried one in the crowd, through which he staggered on.
"My eyes! ain't he drunk?"
"Don't he pay as much attention to one side o' the pavement as the tother?"
"Did you ever see sich worm fence as he lays out?"
There was something grotesquely horrible in the contrast between his real condition, and the view which the crowd took of it.
At length, not knowing whither he went, he turned from the glare and noise of Broadway into a by-street, and hurried onward,—onward, through the gloom, until he fell.