Forth trundled the cab into the Christmas streets, the fare
within plunged in the blackness of a despair that neighboured
on unconsciousness, the driver on the box digesting his
rebuke and his customer's duplicity. I would not be thought
to put the pair in competition; John's case was out of all
parallel. But the cabman, too, is worth the sympathy of the
judicious; for he was a fellow of genuine kindliness and a
high sense of personal dignity incensed by drink; and his
advances had been cruelly and publicly rebuffed. As he
drove, therefore, he counted his wrongs, and thirsted for
sympathy and drink. Now, it chanced he had a friend, a
publican in Queensferry Street, from whom, in view of the
sacredness of the occasion, he thought he might extract a
dram. Queensferry Street lies something off the direct road
to Murrayfield. But then there is the hilly cross-road that
passes by the valley of the Leith and the Dean Cemetery; and
Queensferry Street is on the way to that. What was to hinder
the cabman, since his horse was dumb, from choosing the
cross-road, and calling on his friend in passing? So it was
decided; and the charioteer, already somewhat mollified,
turned aside his horse to the right.
John, meanwhile, sat collapsed, his chin sunk upon his chest,
his mind in abeyance. The smell of the cab was still faintly
present to his senses, and a certain leaden chill about his
feet, all else had disappeared in one vast oppression of
calamity and physical faintness.
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