And all
these sources of misery swelled the current of rebellious feeling
which had so often threatened to sweep his life into wreckage. He
was Clara's father, and the same impulse of furious revolt which had
driven the girl to recklessness now inflamed him with the rage of
despair.
On a Bank-holiday only a few insignificant shops remain open even in
the poor districts of London; sweets you can purchase, and tobacco,
but not much else that is sold across an ordinary counter. The more
noticeable becomes the brisk trade of public-houses. At the gin-shop
centres the life of each street; here is a wide door and a noisy
welcome, the more attractive by contrast with the stretch of closed
shutters on either hand. At such a door, midway in the sultry
afternoon, John Hewett paused. To look at his stooping shoulders,
his uncertain swaying this way and that, his flushed, perspiring
face, you might have taken him for one who had already been
drinking. No; it was only a struggle between his despairing
wretchedness and a lifelong habit of mind. Not difficult to foresee
which would prevail; the public-house always has its doors open in
expectation of such instances.
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