But Mike also learned that this is not always
necessary to a man with courage, and that very often escape lies in
the last moment, the very last, when endurance seems no longer
possible. His deliverance did not burst upon him in rainbow colours
out of the sky complete. It was a very slow affair. He heard that
an old woman had died who lived in Parker's Alley and sold old
clothes, old iron, bottles, and such like trash. Parker's Alley was
not very easy to find. Going up High Street from the bridge, you
first turned to the right through Cross Street, and then to the
right again down Lock Lane, and out of Lock Lane ran the alley, a
little narrow gutter of a place, dark and squalid, paved with round
stones, through which slops of all kinds perpetually percolated, and
gave forth on the cleanest days a faint and sickening odour. Mike
thought he could buy the stock for five shillings; the rent was only
half a crown a week, and with the help of Tom, a remarkably sharp
boy, who could tell him in what condition the goods were which were
offered him for purchase, he hoped he could manage to make way. It
was a dreadful trial. The old woman had lived amongst all her
property. She had eaten and drunk and slept amidst the dirty rags
of Eastthorpe, but Mike could not. Fortunately the cottage was at
the end of the alley. One window looked out on it, but the door was
in a kind of indentation in it round the corner. On the right-hand
side of the door was the room looking into the alley, and this Mike
made his shop; on the left was a little cupboard of a living-room.
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