With
Rudolph, the obscure garden and echoing house left a sense of magical
ownership, sudden and fleeting, like riches in the Arabian Nights. The
road, leaving on the right a low hill, or convex field, that heaved
against the lower stars, now led the wanderers down a lane of hovels,
among dim squares of smoky lamplight.
Wu, their lantern-bearer, had turned back, and they had begun to pass a
few quiet, expectant shops, when a screaming voice, ahead, outraged the
evening stillness.
At the first words, Heywood doubled his pace.
"Come along. Here's a lark--or a tragedy."
Jostling through a malodorous crowd that blockaded the quarrel, they
gained the threshold of a lighted shop. Against a rank of orderly
shelves, a fat merchant stood at bay, silent, quick-eyed, apprehensive.
Before him, like an actor in a mad scene, a sobbing ruffian, naked to
the waist, convulsed with passion, brandished wild fists and ranted with
incredible sounds. When breath failed, he staggered, gasping, and swept
his audience with the glazed, unmeaning stare of drink or lunacy. The
merchant spoke up, timid and deprecating. As though the words were
vitriol, the other started, whirled face to face, and was seized with a
new raving.
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