Chapter 30 - Page 2

abandoned his search, came up out of
Limehouse Hole, and took the way past Limehouse Church. At
the great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in.
He looked up at the high tower spectrally resisting the wind, and
he looked round at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead
in their winding-sheets, and he counted the nine tolls of the clock-
bell.

'It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,' said he, 'to be
looking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I
no more hold a place among the living than these dead do, and
even to know that I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie buried
here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that was once a man could
hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among
mankind, than I feel.

'But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real side, so
difficult that, though I think of it every day, I never thoroughly
think it out. Now, let me determine to think it out as I walk home.
I know I evade it, as many men--perhaps most men--do evade
thinking their way through their greatest perplexity. I will try to
pin myself to mine. Don't evade it, John Harmon; don't evade it;
think it out!

'When I came to England, attracted to the country with which I
had none but most miserable associations, by the accounts of my
fine inheritance that found me abroad, I came back, shrinking
from my father's money, shrinking from my father's memory,
mistrustful of being forced on a mercenary wife, mistrustful of my
father's intention in thrusting that marriage on me, mistrustful that
I was already growing avaricious, mistrustful that I was slackening
in gratitude to the two dear noble honest friends who had made
the only sunlight in my childish life or that of my hearthroken
sister. I came back, timid, divided in my mind, afraid of myself
and everybody here, knowing of nothing but wretchedness that
my father's wealth had ever brought about. Now, stop, and so far
think it out, John Harmon. Is that so? That is exactly so.

'On board serving as third mate was George Radfoot. I knew
nothing of him. His name first became known to me about a week
before we sailed, through my being accosted by one of the ship-
agent's clerks as "Mr Radfoot." It was one day when I had gone
aboard to look to my preparations, and the clerk, coming behind
me as I stood on deck, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Mr
Rad-foot, look here," referring to some papers that he had in his
hand. And my name first became known to Radfoot, through
another clerk within a day or two, and while the ship was yet in
port, coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and
beginning, "I beg your pardon, Mr Harmon--." I believe we were