Half-way up the post he was seized with a violent trembling.

His position brought to him a confused memory of a text of Scripture: "He that entereth not by the door ...

but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." Bred under Moravian influence, he half-believed the text to be supernaturally suggested to him.

For a moment his purpose wavered, but the habit of going through with an undertaking took the place of his will, and he went on blindly, as Baker the Nile explorer did, "more like a donkey than like a man." Once on the upper porch he hesitated again.

To break into a man's house in this way was unlawful.