He felt afraid, who had never before known the taste of fear; he felt weary, who had never until then known what it was to be tired. "Oh, what is this that is coming over me?" he thought. "If I am doing well, why do I tremble?" For even while he planned his daring attempt a great feebleness seemed to be in all his members.
Thus it chanced that on the next day thereafter, Saturday, he saw many busy preparations along the line of the High Street and its byways, such as the swinging of pulley ropes from house front to house front and the shaking out of bunting, without asking what festival they purported. But returning to his lodging in the evening he found his landlady busy with preparations of a like kind about the entrance to the yard of the Cathedral, and then he knew too well what new thing was coming. All the same he asked, and his landlady answered him:
"Lord bless me," she cried, "and haven't you heard that the young Governor is to be wedded?"
"To-morrow," said the old body.
"Where?"
"Why, in the Cathedral, surely. It will be a bonny sight, I promise you. You would like to see it, I make no doubt. Well, and so you shall, my son. I'll get you in. Only leave it to me. Only leave it to me."
Jason had expected this answer; like a horse that quivers under the lash, while it is yet hissing over his head, he had seen the blow coming, yet when it came it startled and stunned him. He got up, touching no food, and staggered back into the street.
It was now dark night. The stores were lit up by their open lamps, whose noisome smoke streamed out over the pathway, and mingled with the foul vapors that came from the drinking shops. The little town was very busy; throngs of people passed to and fro, and there was much shouting and noisy laughter.
To Jason all this was a mass of confusion, like a dream that is vague and broken and has no semblance of reality. His knees smote together as he walked, and his mind was clogged and numbed. At length he was conscious that some brawlers who were lounging at the door of a tavern were jeering as he went by them, and that a woman who was passing at the same moment was rating them roundly.