No one knew more surely than Joshua Creed
himself that, if he suffered himself to entertain any large and lofty
views of life, he would infallibly find himself in that building to keep
out of which he was in the habit of addressing to God his only prayer to
speak of. Fortunately, from a boy up, together with a lengthy, oblong,
square-jawed face, he had been given by Nature a single-minded view
of life. In fact, the mysterious, stout tenacity of a soul born in the
neighbourhood of Newmarket could not have been done justice to had he
constitutionally seen--any more than Mr. Stone himself--two things at
a time. The one thing he had seen, for the five years that he had now
stood outside Messrs. Rose and Thorn's, was the workhouse; and, as he
was not going there so long as he was living, he attended carefully to
all little matters of expense in this somewhat sordid way.
While attending thus, he heard a scream. Having by temperament
considerable caution, but little fear, he waited till he heard another,
and then got out of bed. Taking the poker in his hand, and putting on
his spectacles, he hurried to the door. Many a time and oft in old
days had he risen in this fashion to defend the plate of the "Honorable
Bateson" and the Dowager Countess of Glengower from the periodical
attacks of his imagination.
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