"Ah! poor fellow!" He went next to the window.

The night was black, and he could see nothing from it.

The rain still pattered heavily against the glass.

He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the back of the house, remembering that the front was sheltered from the weather by the court and the buildings over it.
While he was still standing at the window--for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it--while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church clock strike ten.

Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house was astir the next morning?
Under any other circumstances he would have gone down to the public-house parlor, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life.