I had just finished looking round when I heard a noise below.
“You Antony!” shouted Mr Blakeford; “mind you put that candle out safely, and look sharp into bed.”
I obeyed by hastily undressing and putting out the candle to get quickly into bed. It was not to lie down, but, after once more battling with my weakness, to offer up the simple prayers I had been taught, and then, still upon my knees, but with my head drooping on to the pillow, falling fast asleep.
I awoke terribly depressed at daybreak, to listen to some noisy fowls close by, and then I could hear that the rain was pattering heavily down.
Ought I to get up then, or should I lie a little longer? I could not tell, but I recollected Mr Blakeford’s words, and as I did so the same wretched despondent feeling came over me as I thought of my helplessness, and trembled, feeling sure I should give offence.
There are few people who thoroughly realise the sufferings of a tenderly nurtured, sensitive boy when first called upon to battle with the world amongst unsympathising strangers. He is only a boy in their eyes, and they fail to give him credit for the same feelings as themselves, when too often he is far more finely strung, and suffers acutely from every unkind word and look. The very act of going from home is distressing enough, but when it is supplemented by his finding himself forced to make his first essays in some uncongenial task to which his hands and the brain that should guide are totally unaccustomed, a feeling of despair often takes possession of his young spirit, and is accompanied by a hopeless despondency that is long before it wears away.
I had had painful afflictions enough during the past weeks, so that I was anything but well prepared for my new life. Besides, I had been badly fed, and the natural sinking caused by the want of proper food terribly augmented my sense of misery.
The rain pattered down on the slates and skylight, while the water ran along the gutter and gurgled strangely in a pipe close to the corner where my bed was placed, as I lay wondering what I had better do. The office was below me, with its silent clock, but perhaps I should not be doing right, I thought, if I got up and went down to see the time. Perhaps, too, the place might be locked up.
I lay thinking in this undecided way till all my doubts were set aside, for there was a loud continuous ringing just outside my door, one which was kept up as if some angry person were sawing away at the wire with the full intention of dragging it down.
It agonised me as I jumped out of bed and began hastily to dress, for I felt as if it must be to rouse me up, and as if I had inadvertently been guilty of some lapse.