No More Learning

A loud-toned clock struck eleven, and the company were fast deserting
the bazaar. A shop-keeper, in putting up a shutter, jostled the old
man, and at the instant I saw a strong shudder come over his frame. He
hurried into the street, looked anxiously around him for an instant, and
then ran with incredible swiftness through many crooked and people-less
lanes, until we emerged once more upon the great thoroughfare whence we
had started--the street of the D---- Hotel. It no longer wore, however,
the same aspect. It was still brilliant with gas; but the rain fell
fiercely, and there were few persons to be seen. The stranger grew pale.
He walked moodily some paces up the once populous avenue, then, with a
heavy sigh, turned in the direction of the river, and, plunging through
a great variety of devious ways, came out, at length, in view of one of
the principal theatres. It was about being closed, and the audience were
thronging from the doors. I saw the old man gasp as if for breath while
he threw himself amid the crowd; but I thought that the intense agony of
his countenance had, in some measure, abated. His head again fell upon
his breast; he appeared as I had seen him at first. I observed that
he now took the course in which had gone the greater number of the
audience--but, upon the whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the
waywardness of his actions.

As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his old uneasiness
and vacillation were resumed. For some time he followed closely a
party of some ten or twelve roisterers; but from this number one by one
dropped off, until three only remained together, in a narrow and gloomy
lane little frequented. The stranger paused, and, for a moment, seemed
lost in thought; then, with every mark of agitation, pursued rapidly
a route which brought us to the verge of the city, amid regions very
different from those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome
quarter of London, where every thing wore the worst impress of the most
deplorable poverty, and of the most desperate crime.
By the dim light
of an accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden tenements were
seen tottering to their fall, in directions so many and capricious that
scarce the semblance of a passage was discernible between them.
The paving-stones lay at random, displaced from their beds by the
rankly-growing grass. Horrible filth festered in the dammed-up gutters.
The whole atmosphere teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the
sounds of human life revived by sure degrees, and at length large bands
of the most abandoned of a London populace were seen reeling to and fro.
The spirits of the old man again flickered up, as a lamp which is near
its death hour. Once more he strode onward with elastic tread. Suddenly
a corner was turned, a blaze of light burst upon our sight, and we stood
before one of the huge suburban temples of Intemperance--one of the
palaces of the fiend, Gin.

It was now nearly day-break; but a number of wretched inebriates still
pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance. With a half shriek of
joy the old man forced a passage within, resumed at once his original
bearing, and stalked backward and forward, without apparent object,
among the throng. He had not been thus long occupied, however, before
a rush to the doors gave token that the host was closing them for the
night. It was something even more intense than despair that I then
observed upon the countenance of the singular being whom I had watched
so pertinaciously. Yet he did not hesitate in his career, but, with
a mad energy, retraced his steps at once, to the heart of the mighty
London. Long and swiftly he fled, while I followed him in the wildest
amazement, resolute not to abandon a scrutiny in which I now felt an
interest all-absorbing. The sun arose while we proceeded, and, when we
had once again reached that most thronged mart of the populous town, the
street of the D----- Hotel, it presented an appearance of human bustle
and activity scarcely inferior to what I had seen on the evening before.
And here, long, amid the momently increasing confusion, did I persist
in my pursuit of the stranger.