He was hungry; he waxed furious with the woman who had flung him out upon the roads.  He was thirsty as well.  The brightest something to refresh his thoughts grew and glowed in the form of a shiny table, bearing tasty dishes, old wines; at an inn or anywhere.  But, out of London, an English inn to furnish the dishes and the wines for a civilized and self-respecting man is hard to seek, as difficult to find as a perfect skeleton of an extinct species.  The earl’s breast howled derision of his pursuit when he drew up at the; sign of the Royal Sovereign, in the dusky hour, and handed himself desperately to Mrs. Rundles’ mercy.

He could not wait for a dinner, so his eating was cold meat.  Warned by a sip, that his drinking, if he drank, was to be an excursion in chemical acids, the virtues of an abstainer served for his consolation.  Tolerant of tobacco, although he did not smoke, he fronted the fire, envying Gower Woodseer the contemplative pipe, which for half a dozen puffs wafted him to bracing deserts, or primaeval forests, or old highways with the swallow thoughts above him, down the Past, into the Future.  A pipe is pleasant dreams at command.  A pipe is the concrete form of philosophy.  Why, then, a pipe is the alternative of a friar’s frock for an escape from women.  But if one does not smoke! . . .  Here and there a man is visibly in the eyes of all men cursed:  let him be blest by Fortune; let him be handsome, healthy, wealthy, courted, he is cursed.

Fleetwood lay that night beneath the roof of the Royal Sovereign.  Sleep is life’s legitimate mate.  It will treat us at times as the faithless wife, who becomes a harrying beast, behaves to her lord.  He had no sleep.  Having put out his candle, an idea took hold of him, and he jumped up to light it again and verify the idea that this room . . .  He left the bed and strode round it, going in the guise of an urgent somnambulist, or ghost bearing burden of an imperfectly remembered mission.  This was the room.

Reason and cold together overcame his illogical scruples to lie down on that bed soliciting the sleep desired.  He lay and groaned, lay and rolled.  All night the Naval Monarch with the loose cheeks and jelly smile of the swinging sign-board creaked.  Flaws of the North-easter swung and banged him.  He creaked high, in complaint,—­low, in some partial contentment.  There was piping of his boatswain, shrill piping —­shrieks of the whistle.  How many nights had that most ill-fated of brides lain listening to the idiotic uproar!  It excused a touch of craziness.  But how many?  Not one, not two, ten, twenty:—­count, count to the exact number of nights the unhappy girl must have heard those mad colloquies of the hurricane boatswain and the chirpy king.  By heaven!  Whitechapel, after one night of it, beckons as a haven of grace.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

A DIP INTO THE SPRING’S WATERS