Fellow Townsmen

“He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and went out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening pavement while eight o’clock was striking from St. Mary’s tower, and the apprentices and shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end to end of the town. In two minutes only those shops which could boast of no attendant save the master or the mistress remained with open eyes. These were ever somewhat less prompt to exclude customers than the others: for their owners’ ears the closing hour had scarcely the cheerfulness that it possessed for the hired servants of the rest. Yet the night being dreary thedelay was not for long, and their windows, too, blinked together one by one.”