118
WYLDER'S HAJYD.
chill, lifted up his yellow eyes suddenly, and recollected
where he was, the common had grown dark, and was quite
deserted. There were lights in the windows of the
reading-room, and in the billiard-room beneath it; and
shadowy figures, with cues in their hands, gliding hither
and thither, across its uncurtained windows.
With a shrug, and a stealthy glance round him, Cap-
tain Lake started up. The instinct of the lonely and
gloomy man unconsciously drew him towards the light,
and he approached.
Captain Lake, waiting, with his hand on the door-handle,
for the stroke, heard the smack of the balls, and the score
called by the marker, and entered the hot, glaring room.
Old Major Jackson, with his glass in his eye, was contend-
ing in his shirt-sleeves heroically with a Manchester
bag-man, who was palpably too much for him. The
double-chinned and florid proprietor of the "Brandon
Arms," with a brandy-and-water familiarity, offered Cap-
tain Lake two to one on the game in anything he liked,
which the Captain declined, and took his seat on the
bench.
He was not interested by the struggle of the gallant
Major, who smiled like a prize-fighter under his punish-
ment. In fact, he could not have told the score at any
point of the game; and, to judge by his face, was trans-
lated from the glare of that arena into a dark and splenetic
world of his own.
When he wakened up, in the buzz and clack of tongues
that followed the close of the game, Captain Lake glared
round for a moment, like a man called up from sleep; the
noise rattled and roared in his ears, the talk sounded
madly, and the feces of the people excited and menaced
him undefinably, and he felt as if he wa3 on the point
of starting to his feet and stamping and shouting.