On regaining his breath, he began to consider whither chance had led
him; and, rubbing his eyes to clear his sight, he perceived a sombre
pile, with a lofty tower and broad roof, immediately in front of him.
This structure at once satisfied him as to where he stood. He knew it to
be St. Saviour's Church. As he looked up at the massive tower, the clock
tolled forth the hour of midnight. The solemn strokes were immediately
answered by a multitude of chimes, sounding across the Thames, amongst
which the deep note of Saint Paul's was plainly distinguishable. A
feeling of inexplicable awe crept over the carpenter as the sounds died
away. He trembled, not from any superstitious dread, but from an
undefined sense of approaching danger. The peculiar appearance of the
sky was not without some influence in awakening these terrors. Over one
of the pinnacles of the tower a speck of pallid light marked the
position of the moon, then newly born and newly risen. It was still
profoundly dark; but the wind, which had begun to blow with some
violence, chased the clouds rapidly across the heavens, and dispersed
the vapours hanging nearer the earth. Sometimes the moon was totally
eclipsed; at others, it shed a wan and ghastly glimmer over the masses
rolling in the firmament. Not a star could be discerned, but, in their
stead, streaks of lurid radiance, whence proceeding it was impossible to
determine, shot ever and anon athwart the dusky vault, and added to the
ominous and threatening appearance of the night.
Alarmed by these prognostications of a storm, and feeling too much
exhausted from his late severe treatment to proceed further on foot,
Wood endeavoured to find a tavern where he might warm and otherwise
refresh himself. With this view he struck off into a narrow street on
the left, and soon entered a small alehouse, over the door of which hung
the sign of the "Welsh Trumpeter."
"Let me have a glass of brandy," said he, addressing the host.
"Too late, master," replied the landlord of the Trumpeter, in a surly
tone, for he did not much like the appearance of his customer; "just
shut up shop."
"Zounds! David Pugh, don't you know your old friend and countryman?"
exclaimed the carpenter.
"Ah! Owen Wood, is it you?" cried David in astonishment. "What the devil
makes you out so late? And what has happened to you, man, eh?--you seem
in a queer plight."
"Give me the brandy, and I'll tell you," replied Wood.
"Here, wife--hostess--fetch me that bottle from the second shelf in the
corner cupboard.--There, Mr. Wood," cried David, pouring out a glass of
the spirit, and offering it to the carpenter, "that'll warm the cockles
of your heart. Don't be afraid, man,--off with it. It's right Nantz. I
keep it for my own drinking," he added in a lower tone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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