But there the consolation ceased, for the
still growing light revealed no sign of ministration or comfort.
Above him was a bare, dirty, stained ceiling, with a hole in it,
through which stuck skeleton ribs of lath; around him were bare,
dirty-white walls, that seemed to grow out of the gray light of a
wet morning as the natural deposit from such a solution. Two
slender poles, meant to support curtains, but without a rag of
drapery upon them, rose at his feet, like the masts of a Charon's
boat. Was he indeed in the workhouse he had pre--ferred to
Cairncarque? It could hardly be, for there was the plaster fallen
in great patches from the walls as well as the ceiling, and surely
no workhouse would be allowed to get into such a disrepair! He
tried again, and this time succeeded in turning on his side,
discovering in the process how hard the bed was, and how sharp his
bones. A wooden chair stood a little beyond his reach, and upon it
a bottle and teacup. Not another article could he discover. Right
under the hole in the ceiling a board was partly rotted away in the
floor, and a cold, damp air, smelling of earth, and decaying wood,
seemed to come steaming up through it. A few minutes more, he said
to himself, and he would get up, and out of the hideous place, but
he must lie a little longer first, just to come to himself!--Now he
would try!--What had become of his strength? Was it gone utterly?
Could one night's illness have reduced him thus?
He seemed to himself unable to think, yet the profoundest thought
went on as if thinking itself in him.
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