In a very sulky mood he flung out of the public-house and sauntered away. He knew not where to go, for he had no friends in Yarmouth—at least none who would have welcomed him—and he had not wherewith to pay for a bed, even in the poorest lodging.
As he walked along, conscience began to smite him, but he was in no mood to listen to conscience. He silenced it, and at the same time called himself, with an oath, a big fool. There is no question that he was right, yet he would have denied the fact and fought any one else who should have ventured so to address him.
The evening was beginning to grow dark as he turned down one of the narrow and lonely rows.
Now, it so happened that this was one of the rows through which Ruth Dotropy had to pass on her way home.
Ruth was not naturally timid, but when she suddenly beheld a half-drunken man coming towards her, and observed that no one else was near, something like a flutter of anxiety agitated her breast. At the same moment something like a sledge-hammer blow smote the concave side of John Gunter’s bosom.
“She’s got more than she needs,” he growled between his teeth, “an’ I’ve got nothin’!”
As his conscience had been silenced this was a sufficient argument for John.
“I’ll thank you for a shillin’, Miss,” he said, confronting the now frightened girl after a hasty glance round.
“Oh! yes, yes—willingly,” gasped poor Ruth, fumbling in her pocket for her purse. The purse, however, chanced to have been left at home. “Oh, how provoking! I have not my purse with me, but if these few pence will—”
“Never mind the pence, Miss,” said Gunter,—accepting the pence; however, as he spoke—“that nice little watch will do jist as well.”