Now
that he was on his return to it, it seemed beyond comparison more dismal
and more dreadful than the wood. His hideous secret was shut up in the
room, and all its terrors were there; to his thinking it was not in the
wood at all.
He walked on for ten miles; and then stopped at an ale-house for a
coach, which he knew would pass through, on its way to London, before
long; and which he also knew was not the coach he had travelled down by,
for it came from another place. He sat down outside the door here, on
a bench, beside a man who was smoking his pipe. Having called for some
beer, and drunk, he offered it to this companion, who thanked him, and
took a draught. He could not help thinking that, if the man had known
all, he might scarcely have relished drinking out of the same cup with
him.
'A fine night, master!' said this person. 'And a rare sunset.'
'I didn't see it,' was his hasty answer.
'Didn't see it?' returned the man.
'How the devil could I see it, if I was asleep?'
'Asleep! Aye, aye.' The man appeared surprised by his unexpected
irritability, and saying no more, smoked his pipe in silence.
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