His heart was hot with shame and rage, and heavy with despair. He
put the note in his pocket, and took his bag and walked out of the
hotel. He had not money enough to get home with now, and besides he
could not bear to go back in the disgrace of such calamity. It would
be all over the neighbourhood, as soon as his mother could tell it;
she might wish to keep it to herself for his sake, but she could not
help telling it to the first person and every person she saw; she
would have to go over to the neighbours to tell it. In a dreary,
homesick longing he saw her crossing the familiar meadows that lay
between the houses, bareheaded, in her apron, her face set and rigid
with wonder at what had happened to her Lem. He could not bear the
thought. He would rather die; he would rather go to sea. This idea
flashed into his mind as he lifted his eyes aimlessly and caught
sight of the tall masts of the coal-ships lying at the railroad
wharves, and he walked quickly in the direction of them, so as not
to give himself time to think about it, so as to do it now, quick,
right off. But he found his way impeded by all sorts of obstacles; a
gate closed across the street to let some trains draw in and out of
a station; then a lot of string teams and slow, heavy-laden trucks
got before him, with a turmoil of express wagons, herdics, and
hacks, in which he was near being run over, and was yelled at, sworn
at, and laughed at as he stood bewildered, with his lank bag in his
hand. He turned and walked back past the hotel again. He felt it an
escape, after all, not to have gone to sea; and now a hopeful
thought struck him. He would go back to the Common and watch for
those fellows who fooled him, and set the police on them, and get
his money from them; they might come prowling round again to fool
somebody else. He looked out for a car marked like the one he had
followed down from the Common, and began to follow it on its return.
He got ahead of the car whenever it stopped, so as to be spared the