Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

George Manville Fenn

"Mad"

"A Story of Dust and Ashes"

Volume One—Chapter One.

The Thin End of the Wedge.

Septimus Hardon bore his Christian name from no numerical reason, for he was an only child; but his father, Octavius Hardon, Esquire, of Somesham, thought that, like his own, the name had a good bold sound with it—a sonorous classical twang. There was a vibration with it that should impress people in the future life of the bearer and add importance denied by Nature; but Mrs Octavius, during her lifetime, was always in disgrace with her lord for shortening the name into Sep, which was decidedly not impressive; while as for Septimus himself, he too was always in trouble with his father for being what he was—decidedly impressive, but not in the way his father wished; for to look at Septimus Hardon it might have been supposed that Nature, after trying her ’prentice hand on man, and then making “the lasses, O,” had had a quantity of rough stuff left—odds and ends, snips and scraps and awkward tags—when, sooner than there should be any waste of the precious material, she made Septimus Hardon. You could not say that he was deformed, but there was an odd look about him; his head seemed too big, and was badly thatched, while, by contrast, his body was too small; then his nose was a trifle on one side, and his mouth too wide, though it certainly disclosed an enviable set of teeth; his arms were long, and swung about too much, while one leg was slightly shorter than the other, short enough to make him limp; but there was mildness written in his pitted face, and honesty peered at you from his clear bright eyes. And there was a true heart too in his breast, a large swelling heart, to which must have been due the obtrusiveness of his breast, and the decided roundness of his shoulders. And while Septimus Hardon had in some things most excellent taste—taste that his cousins sneered at, save when they wanted their music copied neatly, or their drawings touched up—yet dress was not his forte, since he always made the worst of himself by wearing clothes that did not fit him, and bad as his figure was, some tailor could have been found who would have guaranteed fit, if not style. Septimus generally wore shabby faded black coats and vests, trousers of a dead leaf or baker’s drab, blucher boots of the pattern known as contract—very bulgy and wrinkly; and a real beaver hat, with a propensity for growing irritated under the brush, and becoming rough and startling.

Born in London, Septimus had lived since childhood with his father at the Grange, a solitary house about a couple of miles from Somesham town; and for years past the amusement and toil of the father and son had been centred in a little amateur printing-office, fitted up in a side-room, where they laboriously printed, page by page, the work that Octavius Hardon called his brother Thomas—the doctor practising in the town—a fool for not appreciating,—a work upon political reform, one that was to astonish the world at large when it was completed; and though Septimus owned to himself that the world would be easily astonished and its state rather startling if it accepted and acted upon the opinions there set forth, yet, at forty years of age, he was still working on day after day at his father’s beck and call, obedient as a child, and never venturing an opinion of his own in presence of the irascible old man, who always called him “boy.”

It might have been supposed that living so secluded a life himself, and being so strange of aspect, the idle god would have spared him as an object for his shafts; but for long years Septimus Hardon had loved in secret, loved and sorrowed,—for he was not happy in the choice he had made. Mary Phillips was the betrothed of Tom Grey, the mate of an East Indiaman; and Septimus Hardon had been divided between love for the fair girl and friendship for his old schoolfellow, who made him the repository, in his frank, sailorlike fashion, of all his secrets.

So while the sailor had wooed and won, Septimus Hardon had nursed his love for years, hardly realising the passion he had harboured, till one night when, after a woodside ramble, he stood leaning upon a stile, and glancing down with bitterness at his uncouth form. The shadows were growing deeper, when, hearing approaching footsteps, he entered the wood, where before him lay many a dark mossy arcade—fit places for the sighs of a sorrowful heart; and he thought as he entered one that he could wander here in peace for a while; but the next instant the hot blood flushed up into his face, making his veins throb as he stood with clenched hands gazing through the thin screen of leaves at Mary, leaning lovingly upon his friend’s arm, and listening with downcast eyes to his words.

The listener could hardly see the looks of those who passed, but their words seemed to ring through the stillness of the summer eve, each one falling with a heavy impact upon his ear, and vibrating through his frame, as if a sharp blow had been struck upon sonorous metal. For a moment a wild fury seemed to blind him, and he stood trembling with passion till the footsteps died away; when, half wild with agony, he dashed headlong, deeper and deeper into the wood, crashing through the light hazels, tripping over the tortuous roots; and at last, stumbling over a fallen bough, he fell heavily, and lay insensible in the calm depths of the wood. But thought soon dawned upon him again, and he lay and shuddered as the anguish of heart came slowly creeping back; for he now thoroughly understood his fate, and knew that the bright dreamy structures in which his imagination had revelled had crumbled before him into bitter dust.

Time sped on, and after another voyage Tom Grey was back, and standing with his hand upon Septimus Hardon’s shoulder.

“Come? Why, of course, my boy; what should we do without you? Mary begs that you won’t refuse; and, Sep, old fellow, I shall expect you to be her bodyguard when I’m far away at sea.”

Septimus Hardon was standing opposite to a tall pier-glass in his father’s drawing-room when these words were spoken; and he glanced at himself, and then, sighing bitterly, wondered whether, had he been as other men, he would have been chosen. But the next moment the thought was crushed down, and he was returning the frank, handsome sailor’s honest grasp.

Septimus Hardon nursed his love, but he hid it, buried it in the deepest recesses of his heart; and no one knew of the secret held by the bridegroom’s friend, who held by one of the pews when a swimming came upon him in the church, and he would have fallen had not Tom Grey grasped his arm. But that soon passed, and the stricken man added his congratulations to those of the friends assembled to follow the couple, in whose path flowers were strewn—the couple joined together till death did them part.

And that was soon—soon to the loving wife—soon to the husband whose journeyings were upon the great deep; but years passed first, during which quiet, vacillating Septimus Hardon was the faithful friend of his schoolfellow’s wife, and the patient slave of her bright-eyed child, at whose bidding he was always ready to attend, even to the neglect of his father’s book.

Then came the day when, after whispering of hope, for many months, Septimus learned that his fears were but too well founded, and that his friend’s ship had gone down with all on board.

A bitter trial was his to break the fatal tidings to the widow, and he stood trembling as she, the woman he had for long years worshipped in secret, reviled him and cursed him in her madness for the news—the blasting news that he had brought upon her home.

Then two years glided away, when the widow, passing through many a phase of sorrow, sickness, and misery, sat hoping on that he whom she mourned would yet return, and all the while ignorant of the hand that supplied her wants, or of the good friend with so great a love for fancy-work that she sent order after order, liberally paid for by the hands of Septimus Hardon. The beauty of the past slowly faded, so that she became haggard and thin; a lasting illness seemed to have her in its grasp; but still faithful to his trust, true to the love he bore her, Septimus Hardon set at naught the frowns of his father and the sneers of his cousins, while he devoted himself to the alleviation of the widow’s sufferings, and kept her from the additional stings of want, for she had been left totally unprovided for by her young and hopeful husband.

And what was the result? Such as might have been expected from such a nature as Septimus Hardon’s. Patient and true, the love he bore this woman was hidden for years, and then, when in her hopeless misery the widow turned her head upon the sick pillow and asked his advice, he told her to give him the right to protect her, to be to her child, little Lucy, a second father, and then shrank, crushed and trembling, from the room, affrighted at her look of horror, and the words accusatory which told him of faithlessness to his trust, to his schoolfellow, who she felt yet lived.

But it was only in her hopeful heart he lived, and six months after forbidding Septimus her house, Mary Grey, weeping bitterly over the discovery she had made of the hand that had so long sustained her, wrote these words and sent them to the Grange: “Forgive me!”

Volume One—Chapter Two.

Sep’s Complaint.

Octavius Hardon’s book was at a standstill, and the world still in the thick darkness of ignorance as regarded political reform upon his basis, for Septimus Hardon was ill, sick almost unto death. He had slowly grown listless and dull, careless of everything, daily becoming weaker, until, apparently without ailment, he had taken to his bed, over which his uncle, Doctor Hardon; his assistant, Mr Reston, a handsome, cynical-looking man, and the rival practitioner of the town, had all concurred in shaking their heads and declaring that nothing could be done, since Septimus Hardon was suffering from the effects of an internal malformation.

They were quite right; the poor fellow had too much heart; and though the wise of this earth declare that people do not die of or for love, yet most assuredly Septimus Hardon would slowly have faded from his place among men, and before many months had passed over his head gone where there is rest.

But there was medicine of the right kind coming, and the very perusal with lack-lustre eyes of the prescription brought to his bedroom sent a flash of light into the glassy orbs, and in the course of a few weeks Septimus disappointed the doctors by getting well, Nature having arranged respecting the internal malformation.

“I don’t think you did him a bit of good, Mr Brande; not a bit—not a bit—not a bit,” said Octavius to the rival practitioner. “He never took any of your stuffs. Now, come and set me up again, for I’m wrong.”

“Better, yes, he’s better,” said the old man to Mr Reston. “Good-morning—good-morning—good-morning.”

Doctor Hardon had sent his assistant over; but in place of seeing the patient he found himself bowed out; and on loudly complaining to the doctor, not on account of missing his interview with the patient, but for reasons of his own, Doctor Hardon now called.

“Well, Tom—well, Tom—well, Tom?” said Octavius, smiling cynically, and looking his younger brother well over from top to toe. “What is it, Tom?”

“O, about Septimus?”

“There, be off; I’m busy. Septimus is getting on, and Mr Brande will physic him if he wants any more. A man who can’t morally physic his own children can’t do other people’s good.”

Doctor Hardon, portly and pompous, rose to speak; but Octavius took hold of his arm and led him to the door, giving him his hat at the same time.

“Good-bye, Tom—good-bye—good-bye. Don’t come till I send for you again. You always were a fool, and an ass, and an idiot, and a humbug, Tom—always—always—always.”

There was a slight storm at Doctor Hardon’s that day, and neither his wife nor daughters ventured much into his presence; but when, some weeks afterwards, the doctor knew of a scene that took place in his brother’s house, he smiled softly, and after a fashion of his own he purred, while that night he was graciousness itself.

Octavius Hardon sat writing, and listening to the words of his son till, as he grew interested, the pen ceased to form letters, and at last he pushed back his chair, overturning the inkstand, so that the sable current streamed across a fresh paragraph of his book. He thrust up his glasses and sheltered his eyes to look at his son—the son who had obeyed his every word and look, who had never seemed to have a thought of his own—the son who was even now, in spite of his forty years, but a boy; and as he looked, he saw that he seemed inches taller, that there was an elate look in his countenance, which it would have been hard at that moment to have called plain.

“Going to be what?” gasped the father.

“To be married,” said the son firmly.

“Married?”

“Married, father.”

“And to whom? One of those hussies, your cousins?”

“To Mrs Grey,” replied Septimus.

“What?” gasped the old man. “To a woman—a widow with a family—a proper inmate for the union—a pauper!”

“Hush, father!” cried Septimus. “I love her;” and he said those simple words with such reverence, such tenderness, that the old man paused and gazed almost wonderingly at the aspect worn by his son; but by degrees his anger gained the ascendant, and a stormy scene ensued in which the father threatened and besought in turn, while the son remained calm and immovable. Once he shrunk back and held up his hands deprecatingly, when the old man spoke harshly of the stricken woman; but directly after his face lit up with a pride and contentment which almost maddened the speaker.

“You cannot keep a wife!” he gasped.

Septimus smiled.

“You were always a helpless, vacillating fool, and you have nothing but the few hundreds from your mother.”

Septimus bowed his head.

“Dog!” roared the old man, “I’ll leave every penny I have to your uncle’s hussies if you dare to marry this woman.”

The son smiled sadly, but remained silent.

“Why don’t you speak?” roared Octavius, foaming with rage.

“What would you have me say, father?” said Septimus calmly.

“Say!” gasped the old man; “why, that you are a thankless, graceless, unnatural scoundrel. But where do you mean to go?”

“To London,” said Septimus.

“To London!” sneered the old man; “and what for? No; go to Hanwell, or Colney Hatch, or sink your paltry money at a private asylum, if they will take you. To London, to leave me to my infirmities, with my book unfinished! But you’ll take my curse with you; and may yon brazen, scheming woman—”

“Hush!” cried Septimus fiercely, as he laid his hand upon his father’s lips, when, beside himself with fury, Octavius struck his son heavily in the face, and then, as he fell back, the old man seized the poker, but only to throw it crashing back into the fender.

Just at that moment, the door opened, a tall, dark, handsome girl hurried into the room, and stood between father and son, gazing in an agitated way from one anger-wrought countenance to the other.

“Septimus! Uncle!” she cried, “what is the matter?”

“He’s a villain, girl—an unnatural scoundrel. He’s going to marry that woman—Grey’s wife—widow—relict—curse her!”

“What, poor Mrs Grey?” said the girl, with the tears springing to her eyes.

“God bless you for that, Agnes!” cried Septimus passionately, as he caught her in his arms, and kissed her affectionately.

“Yes, poor Mrs Grey,” sneered the old man, looking savagely at the pair before him. “But there, let him go; and mind you, or you won’t have what I’ve got. But there, you will, and your sisters will have something to fleer and jeer at then, and your father will purr in my face, and spit and swear behind my back. Bah! a cursed tom-cat humbug!”

“Hush, uncle dear!” whispered Agnes, laying one hand upon his arm and the other upon his breast, her lip quivering as she spoke,—“hush! you are angry.—Don’t say any more, Septimus.”

“No,” replied Septimus sternly, “I have done.”

“No, no, no! you have not,” roared the old man, firing up again. “You have to beg my pardon, and tell me that this folly is at an end.”

“I’ll beg your pardon, father,” said Septimus sternly, “and I do ask it for anything I have done amiss; but I have pledged my word to the woman I have loved these ten years.” And again there was the look of proud elation on Septimus Hardon’s countenance.

“And you are going to London, eh?” said Octavius.

“To London,” said Septimus calmly.

The old man frowned, pressed his lips tightly together, and, holding Agnes firmly by her shoulder, he stood pointing with one hand towards the door.

“Then go!” he said; “go—go!”

“O, Septimus!” cried Agnes in appealing tones,—“uncle!”

“You’re mad, Septimus Hardon,” said the old man coldly. “Mad—stark mad: a private asylum, Septimus—an asylum—mad! You’re mad—stark mad! Go!”

Volume One—Chapter Three.

Further Introductions.

In the faint light of early morning, some ten years after the scene described in the last chapter, at that cold dank hour when the struggle is going on between night and day, and the former is being slowly and laboriously conquered,—when Chancery-lane looked at its worst, and the passed-away region of Bennett’s-rents more sordid and desolate than ever. The gas-lamps still glimmered in the street, while the solitary light at the end of the Rents yet burned dimly, and as if half-destroyed by mephitic vapour, when the door of Number 27 was opened, closed loudly, and a man clattered heavily over the broken pavement, creating an unnecessary amount of noise as he slowly made his way out through the narrow archway into the street, but watching on either side with observant eye the while. It seemed darker when he reached the Lane, where, after glancing hastily up and down for a minute, he softly thrust off his boots,—a pair of heavy lace-ups,—and then, taking them in his hand, he ran lightly back, with the stooping gait and eager hound-like air of some savage beast on the trail of its prey. But the next moment he was at the door he had quitted, had opened it softly and slipped in, ignorant that a face at the third-floor window opposite was watching his movements with looks yet keener than his own.

Holding his breath, the man stood in the passage of the old house for a few seconds; then, passing along softly, he stole down the damp, half-rotten cellar-stairs, starting once and giving vent to a half-suppressed ejaculation as a cat dashed hastily by him, when he paused to wipe the cold perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve. Then he stood at the bottom in front of the cellar-door, in the damp dark place where ashes gritted beneath his feet, and the foul smell of half-decayed vegetable refuse arose. Apparently guided by caution, he now carefully felt around him, letting his hands glide along the wall, while his feet probed every corner to insure that he was alone, before, after listening an instant at the foot of the stairs, he slipped quickly through the door, and stood in the large front cellar.

It was lighter here, for the morning was struggling down through the grating; and now, after a careful tour of inspection, peering into every dim corner, the man passed through a low archway and into a back-cellar, darker and damper than the first,—a place that had once been used for wine, and into every one of whose cobweb-hung and sawdust-floored bins the man looked in turn, as he made his way farther from the light.

He was a big, heavy man; but there was something soft and cat-like in his movements as he passed along the dark cellar. The obscurity seemed to have but little effect upon him, for the way appeared familiar; and when right at the end he stopped to listen attentively for a few moments before, going down upon hands and knees, he crawled rapidly, and more cat-like than ever, into one of the darkest bins. Then there was a low grating noise heard, as if a heavy stone had been pushed aside; there was a deep expiration, as of one moving a weight; a rustling, the grating sound once more, and then for a few minutes silence.

The light descending the grating struggled hard to illumine the obscure place; but this was one of the strongholds of darkness—a spot where it lurked through the bright hours of the day; and the efforts of the light only served to faintly illumine the front cellar, where stood a huge water-butt with a pipe leading to it for the supply of the house; and here now began an echoing drip, drip, drip; while from the tap came a strange, sighing, hissing sound, as the air was forced by distant pressure along the pipe.

Now came the sharp crack of a stair, the very faint rustle of a dress, and then slowly and cautiously appeared, coming forward, as it were, out of the gloom like one of the phantoms of a nightmare, the face that had been gazing from the opposite window, an old, eager, hawk-like, pinched woman’s face, peering through the opening of the ajar door, and followed directly by the shabbily-clothed body.

Cautiously, and with eyes peering in every direction, the woman advanced into the cellar, her head thrust forward, with her thin grey hair pushed behind her ears, which twitched and seemed on the alert to catch the faintest sound. Close behind her followed a cropped poodle-dog, which now ran forward, when at a menacing gesture it half stood up, but the raised hand made it shrink down instantly, and crouching to the earth it crawled for a few moments and then lay motionless, while its mistress, as if walking in the steps of the man, nimbly examined the cellar, even peering behind and in the great butt, which her thrust-in hand showed her was nearly full of water.

She then softly made her way to the dark arch, and with one hand holding by the side leaned in and tried to penetrate the darkness, but without avail; when, muttering softly to herself, she stepped in, but only to pass out the next moment shaking her head, as with one hand she busily searched her pocket, from which she drew forth a box of matches. Stepping once more beneath the arch she struck a match upon the damp wall, and a long phosphorescent line of light shone feebly out, but the match did not blaze.

Impatiently throwing down the splint of wood, the woman tried another and another, but without effect, till she rubbed one upon the outside of the box, when it ignited silently, and illumined the place for a little distance round, when eagerly catching up the tiny splints thrown down she lit first one and then another, and as they burned their brief span a hasty examination was made. Everywhere the same features: old cobwebbed wine-bins, damp and fungoid growths, and though the woman peered even into the bin where the man had so lately crawled, nothing presented itself to her hurried gaze more than in the others, and as her last lit splint burned out she stepped lightly back to the entrance.

As she stood within the front cellar she turned once more to gaze down the dark place she had quitted, when a low grating noise struck her ear, and starting back she was about to run to the steps; but, making an effort over herself, she stood, trembling, and listened.

The noise continued for a few seconds, then came the sound as of clothes rustling against a wall, then the heavy breathing, the grating once more, and then silence as, turning her back to both entrances, the woman stole softly to where her dog lay crouching upon the damp floor.

The next moment a sharp yelp and a succession of howls came from the stricken dog as the woman caught it by the thick curled hair of its neck, and beat it savagely.

“Ah, then, méchant chien, bad tog, how I have looked for you!” she cried. “Why do you steal down here? There, there, there!” and each word was followed by a blow, while the wretched little animal lay cowering and yelping on the ground, till, lifted by its ears, the skin seemed drawn out of place, the eyes elongated, and the poor brute, now silent, the most abject specimen of canine misery imaginable.

There was a quick step behind the woman, and, as if surprised, she started, and turned to gaze at the evil face behind her, for the man had stepped close to the entrance-door.

“Ah! Meester Jarker, but you did frighten me. My bad tog he runs away. What shall I do wis him?”

The man looked keenly at the speaker, and slowly drew a large clasp-knife, which he opened, and the woman could hardly repress a shudder as there in the dim light she saw him run his thumb along the edge.

“Ah, yes!” she said with a half-laugh; “he deserves, but I cannot spare him; I must teach him better than to come into uzzer people’s house. I look everywhere before I think of dis cellar.”

The man did not speak, but glanced first at the mistress, then at the dog, and then at his knife and the great butt, and then involuntarily his suspicious looks turned to the dark arch of the inner cellar, when once more their eyes met in a long penetrating stare.

“I once knowed somethin’ as got its throat cut for coming into this here cellar. I ain’t sure, but I think that ’ere was a dawg,” growled the man.

“O yes, he must not come any more, Meester Jarker; but you will not cut my troat. O, no,” laughed the woman jeeringly, as sending her dog on first, and fixing her eyes upon the man, she slowly backed out of the cellar. “O, no, for we will both be good and come no more.”

As she slowly made her way to the cellar-stairs, the man stood looking after her; but as she mounted them he followed softly, and listened till he heard her rustle along the passage, when he slipped through the cellar and caught sight of her from the rusty grating as she crossed the court, when he once more went back to the dark arch and looked about him.

All at once his keen eye caught sight of something upon the floor—a newly-burned scrap of match, and snatching it up, he held it to his cheek to try and detect whether it was dry or damp. It seemed to be dry, so after once more going to the door, and from thence to the stairs, to make out whether he was sure to be free from interruption, he returned hastily, drew forth a tin match-box, lit a scrap of wax-candle from his pocket, and then shading the light with his cap and carefully examining the floor, he picked up three more tiny pieces of half-burned match, lying here and there amongst the blackened dirt and sawdust. These scraps he carefully placed in his pocket along with the piece of candle, and then hurried out, with his lips drawn away from his teeth, and his face wearing a diabolically savage aspect. But the next moment he gave his head a shake, and stole softly up the stairs muttering:

“It must have been arter the dawg.”

Mr William Jarker walked out into the court with his boots on now, and his hands very far down in his pockets, and then made his way into the Lane, where he paused in doubt as to whether he should go to the right or to the left; but as in the latter direction there was a policeman, Mr Jarker betook himself to the right, and made his way into the Strand, now nearly empty, while church-spire and chimney-pot stood out clear in the unsmoked morning air. But the street-sweepers were busy, the butchers’ carts from westward came rattling along, bound for Newgate-market; watercress-girls tramped by from Farringdon, making up their dark-green bunches as they walked; while every now and then a red newspaper-cart dashed by with its universal budget for the various railway termini. London was waking again, the great heart was beating fast, and the streams of life beginning to ebb and flow through the street-veins of the City.

But all this affected Mr Jarker very little, he only seemed interested at times during his walk, being apparently in a very contemplative mood. Once he half-stopped as a tall, dark, fierce-eyed woman walked hastily by in company with a slightly-formed girl; but they noticed him not, and were soon out of sight, while Mr Jarker continued his walk, with eyes directed at the ground, as if he thought that being an early bird he must get the first peck at the worms—worms that might take the form of some valuable waif. However, not meeting with any reward from the earth he turned his eyes heavenward, where he could see no waifs, but an occasional stray in the shape of a pigeon, darting across the clear strip of atmosphere above his head, or settling upon the housetop, and so much did these gentle birds attract his notice, that he would now and then stop, and inserting a couple of tolerably clean, soft, unworked fingers in his mouth, whistle to them.

For the pigeons are many in London, and at early morn single birds may be seen darting in swift flight like airy messengers; flocks may be seen in circle round their home, or cooing in company upon the tower of some lofty church—one of the many hidden amidst the labyrinths of bricks and mortar—cooing softly sweet notes, heard plainly now, but soon to be drowned in the roar of the busy streams of life ebbing and flowing through the streets; now but a gentle hum as of a honey-seeking bee, but soon increasing in intensity as the bees swarm.

There was no help for it this time, for suddenly turning a corner, Mr Jarker come upon a sergeant and a dozen policemen walking with measured step, on their way to relieve those who had been on duty through the night.

“I’m gallussed!” muttered Mr Jarker, trying to look unconcerned, and slouching on; and it was observable that though Mr Jarker looked straight before him and whistled, the policemen, one and all, looked very hard at Mr Jarker, as if they knew him and felt hurt at his pride; while one man was even seen to wink to himself, and smile a very peculiar, hard smile—the kind of smile only seen upon policemen’s faces, and one that means so much that its interpretation would be a task of difficulty.

“I’m gallussed!” muttered Mr Jarker again, when he was well past the men in uniform, and then, apparently satisfied with the length of his morning walk, he took a short cut to make his way back to Bennett’s-rents, while, upon thus once more having his thoughts directed homeward, he again muttered—“It must have been arter the dawg.”

Volume One—Chapter Four.

With the Dragon’s Teeth.

In the gloomiest part of that gloomy street called Carey, and in the darkest corner of his printing-office, sat Septimus Hardon. The dragon’s teeth and their appurtenances lay around, but all thickly covered with that strange black dust peculiar to the region; the dust compounded of who can tell what, as it rests on every ledge, and settles thickly upon every article in room or workshop, office or chamber. Business had not prospered with Septimus, though his place looked business-like, save for the animation that a few moving figures would have lent to it, while for position it was all that could be desired. But the star of Septimus Hardon was not in the ascendant. With the knowledge full upon him that he must work to keep the wife and child he had taken to his breast upon leaving Somesham, he had adopted the trade which seemed most congenial from the little knowledge that he possessed; but as the years passed on, leaving him poorer, and with increased expenses, he grew hopeless, helpless, and, if it were possible, less fitted than ever for fighting his way amidst the busy throngs of the great city. At times, almost in despair, he would go forth into the streets of the busy hive and canvass for work; but he always carried with him an atmosphere of his own, so quiet, strange, and retiring a manner, that his very appearance invited either pity or rebuff, and often and often, when tired out, he would return to his wife for the comfort that she, grown more sickly than ever, could ill afford to give.

But Septimus seldom complained, and there was always a pleasant smile for Lucy Grey, now grown a blooming girl, the mainstay of the family for cheerfulness, and the constant attendant of her invalid mother; and, in spite of her years, almost taking the place of parent to the two children, the fruit of Septimus Hardon’s marriage.

And now, after long years of straggling, Septimus sat thinking of the state of his affairs, of the rent he had to make up, and the silence of his father in spite of the many humble appeals that he had made to him for help. Mattering and calculating, with a piece of paper and a pencil, he suddenly stopped short, for he saw that he was not alone, and shuffling off his high stool he hurried towards the new-comer, in the hope that some solicitor had sent orders for some large amount of work, or that, better still, an estimate was wanted for a new magazine.

“Any chance of a job, sir?” said the new-comer, who might have been Septimus Hardon twenty years older, and more shabby. There was ‘old compositor’ oozing out of him at every corner, and the corners in his person were many; he smelt of stale tobacco-smoke, and he was taking almost his last pinch of snuff out of a dirty piece of paper, with his long, lithe, active fingers as Septimus Hardon approached him. A shabby black frock-coat was buttoned tightly to his chin; his shiny black trousers had the gloss of age thick upon them; Wellington boots were upon his feet that rivalled his tall hat for dilapidations; old, sallow, dirty, and wild-looking, he was not the man a master would have employed unless from some latent idea that he suited the district. “Any chance of a job, sir?”

Septimus Hardon shook his head and sighed, which was, to say the least of it, unbusiness-like.

The old man echoed the sigh, leaned one hand upon the case of type at his elbow, and began to finger the letters, bringing up the bright unused types from the bottom of the boxes. He then sighed again, took in at one glance the fittings of the office, and ended by fixing his eyes upon the owner.

“Might do a deal of work with all this, sir.”

Septimus Hardon nodded drearily, and sighed again, instead of promptly ordering the man off his premises.

“Yes; should be glad of an hour’s work or so, sir. Seems hard here in this world of ours that when a man’s ready and willing to work he can’t get it to do, sir; don’t it?”

Septimus nodded, and looked hard at the man, thinking how his was after all the worse lot.

“I’m faint, sir,” continued the old printer, “and hungry, and hard up;” and then he looked down at his clothes with a dreary smile upon his grim, unshorn face.

“I would give you work with pleasure,” said Septimus; “but I might as well close the office for all that comes to my share.”

The man scraped the last of his snuff out of the shabby piece of newspaper, and lost it all beneath his long dirty finger and thumb-nails; when, not to disappoint his itching organ, he ran a lean finger along a ledge where dust lay thick, and administered it to his nose in an absent way, snapped his fingers loudly to get rid of the residue, and then slowly turned to go; but, on reaching the door, he faced round again:

“If you’d stand an advance of a shilling, sir, I’d come honestly another time and work it out; for I am hard up, sir, and no mistake.”

Mistake there certainly was none; but shillings were then scarce things with Septimus Hardon. A shilling, the sum tossed carelessly to the cabman for a few hundred yards’ ride, meant, perhaps, the dinner of himself and family; and he knew in his heart that the odds were very long against his ever seeing man or shilling again; but there was so great a knowledge of want in his heart that he could not bear to see it in others, and almost the last shilling in his pocket was slipped into the visitor’s hand.

The old printer took the money with his trembling fingers; looked at it, then at the donor; tried to speak, but choked over it; and then, with something like a maundering tear in each eye, he shuffled out of the office, taking with him: The solicitor’s work; The magazine estimate; and, most needed of all, Septimus Hardon’s shilling.

There was so little weight in the pocket before, that the shilling was not missed; and in spite of the black look of his affairs there was something in the act which made Septimus Hardon’s heart feel light as his pocket, as, thrusting his papers into the desk and locking it, he went and stood before a piece of looking-glass and stretched his face to take out the care-wrinkles, smiled two or three times to give a pleasant tarnish to his countenance, and then, loudly humming a tune, he hurried up to the first-floor, where Mrs Septimus, Lucy, and the children, were located.

Carey-street was a most desirable place for residence or business, as any landlord would have told you in the old days, before the houses I write of were carted away by contractors, and huge law-courts threatened in their stead. Lucy Grey knew the place now by heart. There was generally something out of the common way to be seen there, in spite of the place being so retired and its echoes so seldom disturbed by carriages, unless by those of the judges, when coachman and footman thought it advisable to wash down the legal dust of the place by copious draughts of porter at the Barley Mow or the Blue Horse. The dust-cart—that hearse for bearing off the remains of many a dancing, merry, cheery fire—might be seen there in the morning; and at every cloud of dust raised by the emptying of the fantail man’s basket, scraps of parchment and torn folios of cold, bitter cold crabbed writing, were caught up by the fierce winds of the place, and away they went scudding down the street, to the amusement of Septimus Hardon’s children; for the mocking wind tossed the scraps on high, as if to show how light and empty they were. Interesting words they were too, mostly about “our client” and his “heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns;” while of a morning the man whom Septimus Hardon himself knew well as a class, “our client” himself, might be seen in the streets; now early in his suit—Chancery suit, perhaps,—wrapped in it and looking busy and important, glossy and shiny, and, on the whole, apparently liking it. Now with the suit old and shabby, with the pocket-holes frayed and worn with the passage in and out of papers—papers always without end, while the owner crept along, dejected and dismal as Septimus himself, ready at times to enter his office, and sit down and make him the repository of the fact that he hoped the Lord Chancellor or his Vice will give judgment next week. Now he went along, silent and thoughtful; now he brightened up and became energetic, and gesticulated to an audience composed of the apple-woman at the corner, who sat there beneath the lamp summer and winter, like some dowdy old hen in a nest, for her lower extremities were all tightly tucked in a worn sieve-basket.

“Our client” generally went into Carey-street to eat his sandwiches; now looking crumby, now crusty, as the case might be, while he paced irresolutely up and down, or round into the Lane or Portugal-street, or even into the Fields for a change, to gaze at the trees beyond those railings, upon every spike of which a disappointed or broken heart might be stuck by way of ornament. As before said, “our client” had generally plenty of papers with him; some yellow and frayed, some new, but all carefully tied with red tape, which by its friction has a wonderful effect upon black-kid gloves, soon wearing out the fingers, as the papers are untied in doorways for reference while the tape-string is held in the mouth.

“Our client” was decidedly the principal object of interest in Carey-street; but there were thin, clever, cold-looking lawyers; thin, cold, and underpaid clerks, blue-bag bearing; portly thick clerks, warm, glossy, and gold-chained, red-bag bearing—bags gasping and choking fearfully with their contents—choking horribly with the papers thrust into them, sticking out of their very mouths; long-headed barristers, whose eyes seemed to have turned cold and oysterish—meaningless, and as if gazing within—men upon whose long heads briefs rained incessantly; men in gowns, men bewigged, and with the insignia of their rank put on all ways—straight, crooked, here awry, and there awry, with the frontal apex descending upon the nose, and the caudal beauty behind raised at right angles to display the undergrowth, black, brown, grey, or sandy, or perhaps resting upon the nape of the wearer’s neck, with the tails beating a white powdery tune upon his back, like a hare’s feet upon a tabor; shabby witnesses, shabby porters, shabby inhabitants; dirt everywhere, and a sharp, gritty, pouncey dust flying before the wind to bring tears into the eyes.

Lucy Grey knew all this by heart, and so did Septimus Hardon’s children—lessons learned from the windows, or during their walks, when Lucy showed them the wonders of the shops at hand, and that ever-banging, restless door where the shabby law-writers went in and out, night and day; the three wigs resting upon as many blockheads—wooden blockheads—new, fresh, and cool for their future wearers; the works in the law-booksellers’, all bound in dismal paper, or Desert-of-Sahara-coloured leather—law-calf—Tidd on this, Todd on that, Equity Reports, Chancery Practice, Common Law, Statutes at Large, Justice of the Peace, Stone’s Manual. Law everywhere: Simson, tin deed-box manufacturer; Bodgers, deeds copied; Screw, law-writer; Bird, office-furniture warehouse—valuations for probate; S Hardon, legal and general printer; while, like a shade at the end of the street, stood the great hospital, where the wan faces of patients might be seen gazing up at the sky, towards where the clouds scudded before the wind, hurrying to be once more in the country. Away they went, each one a very chariot, bearing with it the thoughts of the prisoned ones—captives from sickness, or poverty, or business. There were faces here at the hospital that would smile, and heads that would nod to Septimus Hardon’s little golden-haired children when Lucy held them up; when perchance the patient went back to sit upon some iron bedstead’s edge, and tell some fellow-sufferer of the bright vision she had seen,—a vision of angels in the legal desert.

With such surroundings, no one upon entering Septimus Hardon’s rooms would have been surprised to see Mrs Septimus careworn, and lying upon a shabby couch, and the children slight and fragile. The rooms were close, heavy, and dull, heavy-windowed, heavy-panelled, earthy-smelling, and cryptish, as though the dust of dead-and-gone suitors lay thick in the place. There was but little accommodation for the heavy rent he paid; and Septimus Hardon looked uneasily from face to face, crushing down the sorrowful thoughts that tried to rise; for in that close room there was not space for more than one complaining soul. Mrs Septimus told of her troubles often enough; and Septimus felt that his task was to cheer. Still, it was hard work when he had to think of the landlord and the rent; the landlord who, when he complained of this said rent, told him to look at the situation; which Septimus Hardon did, and sighed; and then, by way of raising his spirits, took down and read the copies of the letters he had from time to time sent to his father, unanswered one and all; and then he sighed again, and wondered how it would all end.

Volume One—Chapter Five.

A Pair of Shoes.

This is a world of change; but the time was when you could turn by Saint Clement’s Church, from the roar of the waves of life in the Strand, and make your way between a baked-potato can—perspiring violently in its efforts to supply the demands made upon it—and a tin of hot eels, steaming in a pasty mud; then under a gateway, past old-clothes shops and marine-store dealers; thread your way along between crooked tumbledown houses in dismal fever-breeding lanes, which led you into the far-famed region of Lincoln’s-inn, where law stared you in the face at every turn. It will doubtless behave in as barefaced a manner to you at the present day; but you will have to approach it by a different route, for the auctioneer’s hammer has given those preliminary taps that herald the knocking-down of a vast collection of the houses of old London; and perhaps ere these sheets are in the press, first stones will be laid of the buildings to occupy the site as law-courts. But take we the region as it was, with its frowsy abodes and their tenants. They are clipped away now; but in every direction, crowding in upon the great inns of court, were dilapidated houses pressing upon it like miserable suitors asking for their rights, or like rags of the great legal gown. But it is a rare place is Lincoln’s-inn—a place where the law is rampant, and the names of its disciples are piled in monuments upon the door-posts—a place where you may pick your legal adviser according to the length of your purse. The doors stand open, and the halls are cold, cheerless, and echoing, while the large carven keystone looks down at the entering client with its stony eyes, which seem to wink and ogle as the sly, sneering, tongue-thrusting image apparently chuckles at the folly of man. The cold shivers are always out in Lincoln’s-inn, and they attack you the moment you enter the precincts; probably they are spirits of past-and-gone suitors, in past-and-gone suits, wandering to avenge themselves upon the legal fraternity by freezing the courage of litigants and turning them back when about to perform that wholesale shovelling of an estate into the legal dust-cart known as “throwing it into Chancery.” Cold stone posts stand at intervals along the sides of the square, looking, in their grey, bleak misery, like to stripped and bare clients waiting for redress at their legal advisers’ doors. A dreary place for an assignation, if your friend possesses not the virtue of punctuality; for the eye wanders in vain for some pleasant oasis where it may rest. You have not here in autumn those melancholy, washed-out flowers—the chrysanthemums of the Temple, but you may gaze through prison-like bars at soot-dusted grass—verdure apparently splashed with ink from the surrounding offices; at the trees, adapted by nature to the circumstances of their fate; for, as in the arctic zone the thinly-clad animals grow furry as a protection from the cold, so here, in this region of law costs and voluminous writing, the trees put forth twigs and sprays of a sharp spiky nature, a compromise between porcupine penholders and a chevaux de frise, to enable them to set attack at defiance.

Enter one house here, and you would have found upon the ground-floor your QC or Serjeant—Brother So-and-so as he is so affectionately called by the judge; upon the first-floor, your substantial firms of family solicitors, deep in title, lease, covenant, and tenancy in every form or shape—men who set such store by their knowledge that they dole it out to you at so much per dozen words—words adulterated with obsolete expressions repeated ad nauseam; while upon the second-floor you would probably find firms of sharp practitioners, ready for business in any shape; and, as elsewhere through the house, the names of the occupants were painted upon the doors—black letters upon a parchment ground.

But the house in question was not entirely legal in its occupants, for if you had been ascending the stairs, before you had gone far, a loud sniff would have made you raise your head sharply towards the skylight, beneath which, sitting, or rather perched, upon the top balustrade, would have been visible the doughy, big, baby-like face of Mrs Sims, strongly resembling, with the white-muslin wings on either side, a fat-cheeked cherub, freshly settled after some ethereal flight.

Mrs Sims was the lady who did for those gentlemen of the house who wanted doing for, took in parcels, answered bells, and was also well-known in the neighbourhood as a convenient party in times of sickness, being willing to nurse a bachelor gentleman of the legal profession, or one of the poor fraternity of the rags around. She had stood at many a bedside had Mrs Sims, and seen the long sleep come to many a weary, broken-hearted suitor, and she had sniffed and sobbed at the recital of their miseries, offering the while such consolation as she could from the depths of a very simple but very honest heart.

After another loud sniff, and a curtsey performed invisibly, except that the cherubic head was seen to bob out of sight, and then apparently re-perch itself upon the balustrade, Mrs Sims would say “At home,” or “Not at home,” as the case might be. Then, as you left the staircase, the head would disappear, and, summer or winter, Mrs Sims might be heard refreshing herself with a blow at the fire by means of a very creaky, asthmatic pair of bellows.

Mrs Sims was busy, and had made visible the whole of her person, as standing at the door she pointed out into the square, calling the attention of one of her lodgers, as she termed them, to a passer-by.

“Here, you sir; fetch a cab—a four-wheeler,” shouted the lodger. “No; confound your bird—I don’t want birds, I want a cab.”

The person addressed was the inhabitant of Bennett’s-rents—the big, slouchy, large-jawed gentleman, in a fur cap and a sleeved-waistcoat, already known to the reader. He carried a small birdcage, tied in a cotton handkerchief, beneath his arm, while another spotted handkerchief wrapped his bull-neck, where it was pinned with a silver-mounted Stanhope lens, which was apparently regarded as a rare jewel. Upon being first called, he commenced expatiating upon the qualities of the bird, whose cage-envelope he began to unfasten, until so unceremoniously checked by the gentleman who summoned him.

“You’re a fine sort, you are,” growled the man as he went off in search of the cab; “and if I warn’t as dry as sorduss, I’d see you furder afore I’d fetch your gallus cab, so now, then. My name’s Jarker, chrissen William, that’s about what my name is, stand or fall by it—come, now.”

As nobody seemed disposed to “come, now,” Mr Jarker hastened his steps, and soon returned with the cab, placed his cage behind the hall-door, and then, under the direction of Mrs Sims, fetched down portmanteau and bags groaning and sighing beneath their weight, and raising up a smile of contempt upon his employer’s face as he watched the fellow’s actions, and scanned his powerful development and the idleness written so plainly upon his countenance. But soon the task was ended, the cab-door banged, Mrs Sims had turned on a little more of her laughing-gas to brighten her features by way of valediction to the departing lodger, and then, as she sniffed loudly, the cab drove off, leaving Mr Jarker spitting upon that curiosity, an honestly-earned sixpence in his hand.

“How’s the missus? why, she’s okkard, and I don’t s’pose you a-coming would do her any good, and she’s a-going to spend a shillin’ in ankerchers for someone as has a cold in her head, that’s what she’s a-goin’ to do,” said Mr Jarker, with a grin at Mrs Sims, and then he watched the affronted dame as she sniffed her way upstairs; but before she had reached the second flight, Mr Jarker had grinned again, drawing his lips back from his white teeth with a smile that more resembled a snarl.

Mr William Jarker, birdcatcher, fancier of pigeons, and of anything else which came to his net, stood listening to the sniffs and receding footsteps of Mrs Sims, placed the sixpence he had earned in the pocket of his tight corduroys, pulled off his large, flat, fur cap, and gave his head a scratch, thereby displaying a crop of hair which it would have been useless to attempt to brush or part, for it was decidedly short, and the barber who had last operated had not been careful, but left the said hair nicky and notchy in places. However, the style gave due prominence to the peculiar phrenological development of Mr Jarker’s bumps, while his ears stood out largely, and with an air that suggested cropping as an improvement to them as well, more especially since there was a great deal of the bull-dog in his appearance.

Mr Jarker replaced his cap, took his little birdcage from behind the door, and was just moving off, when a barrister came out of one of the lower rooms in full legal costume, muttering loudly, and evidently reciting a part of the performance he was about to go through.

Upon hearing the door open, Mr Jarker turned his head, and then gave an involuntary shudder as he moved off, while the counsel followed closely behind, wrapped in his brief, and at times talking loudly:

“Instead, m’lud, of the case being tried in this honourable court, m’lud, devoted as it is to civil causes, the defendant should be occupying the felon’s dock at the Old Bailey, m’lud; for a more shameful case of robbery—”

“I’m gallussed!” muttered Mr Jarker, quickening his steps, and perspiring profusely, as he gave a furtive glance over his shoulder at the barrister, still rehearsing; “I’m gallussed! It didn’t oughter be allowed out in the public streets.”

Mr Jarker felt his nerves so disarranged in consequence of low diet, that after making his way out of the Inn, across Carey-street, and into the rags of the legal cloak, that is to say into Bennett’s-rents, he resolved to take advantage of there being a “public” at either end of the rents, and regardless of the whooping children who dashed by him, he went in and had “three-ha’porth” of the celebrated cream gin advertised outside upon a blue board with golden legend. After which enricher of his milk of human kindness, Mr Jarker wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he passed through the swinging doors, hugged his cage against his ribs, muttered, “Didn’t oughter be allowed in the public streets,” and then forcing a way through a noisy tribe of children, he paused at Number 27 in the Rents—a dismal-looking old house, worse perhaps by broad daylight than in the early dawn, when some of its foulness had remained concealed. It had been a mansion once, in the days of the Jameses probably, when fresh air was a more abundant commodity in the City, and was not all used up long before it could penetrate so narrow a thoroughfare.

Mr Jarker slowly tramped up flight after flight of stairs till he came to the attic-floor, when, without removing his hands from his pockets, he kicked open the badly-hung door, and entered the bare room.

“O, you’re here agen, are yer?” he said sulkily to a dark, well-dressed woman, in black silk and fashionable bonnet, strangely out of place in the wretched room, whose other occupant was pale-faced, weary-looking Mrs Jarker, whose crimply white hands betokened a very late acquaintanceship with the washtub by the steamy window. “O, you’re here agen, are yer?” said Mr Jarker.

“Yes, Bill,” said Mrs Jarker timidly, every word she spoke seeming to flinch and dart out of reach of hearing almost before it was uttered. “Yes, Bill, she’s come again, and we’ve been talking it over—and—and—and—if you wouldn’t mind, Bill, I’d—”

“How much?” growled Mr Jarker.

“Five shillings,” said his wife timidly; “five shillings a-week.”

“’Tain’t enough,” said Mr Jarker; “it’s worth six. Look at the trouble.”

Mrs Jarker looked from her husband to the stranger and back again, and was about to speak, when her lord exclaimed roughly, “Shut Up!”

The visitor’s eyes flashed for a moment, and then she glanced hastily round the room, her gaze resting for a moment upon the ruffianly, bull-dog face of Jarker, and she hesitated; but another glance at the timid, gentle countenance of his wife seemed to reassure her, and she said hoarsely, with her look fixed upon the flinching woman, “I’ll give you six.”

“And if ’tain’t paid up reg’lar, I’m blest if I sha’n’t chuck it outer winder, or somethin’; so look out,” said Mr Jarker.

The visitor’s lips quivered, but, still gazing fixedly upon the woman, she said in the same hoarse voice: “I shall bring the money once a-week.”

“In advance, yer know,” growled Mr Jarker.

“Yes, yes; only be kind to it,” exclaimed the visitor with something like a sob, but without removing her eyes.

“O, ah! in course we will. We’re the right sort here, ain’t we, Poll?” growled Mr Jarker.

“Yes, Bill,” said his wife in a husky whisper.

“And now,” said Mr Bill Jarker, with what was meant for a pleasant smile, but which consisted of the closing of his eyes, and the display of his teeth,—“and now as we’ve made it all snug, you’ll stand somethin’; that’s what you’ll do, ain’t it now?”

Still without removing her eyes from the pale-faced woman before her, the visitor drew a shilling from a little bead-purse, and laid it upon the table, her lips now moving as if trying to form words for Mrs Jarker to understand.

“Go away now, Bill,” whispered she to her husband.

“What for?” growled Bill, untying the knots of his handkerchief with his teeth, to set his cage at liberty, and nearly frightening the soul out of the tiny, fluttering, panting body contained therein. Then, by way of reply to a whisper, he sullenly took the shilling from the table, bit it, spat upon it, and spun it up, before depositing it in his pocket; made his way to the back part of the attic, where birdcages and the paraphernalia of his profession lay thick; ascended a ladder to a trap in the ceiling, and then, only his legs visible as he stood upon one of the top rounds, Mr Jarker, with half his body above the tiles, busied himself amongst his pigeons, and started them for a flight over the houses.

The next moment, after a hurried glance at the ceiling, where the light streamed down past the ruffian’s legs, the visitor’s face was seen to work, and, rising from her seat, she went down upon her knees before poor Mrs Jarker, kissing her work-worn hands, and bathing them with the tears that streamed from her eyes.

“God—God bless you!” she whispered passionately. “O, be kind to it!”

But Mrs Jarker could not answer for something swelling in her throat; and the next minute she too was weeping, with her hand resting upon her visitor’s shoulder.

This paroxysm of tears seemed to have its effect upon the visitor, for, forcing back her own emotion, she appeared more at ease within herself, as, gazing once more into the pale, worn, common face of the birdcatcher’s wife, she kissed her in so loving and sisterly a way, that the tears flowed faster from Mrs Jarker’s eyes. And yet, knowing full well who was her visitor, Mrs Jarker did not shudder, but rose from her choir, glanced timorously at the open trap, and then drew the stranger towards a box—a common deal-box, with the blue-stained paper that had once covered it hanging here and there in rags. She went upon her knees now, and raised the creaking lid, when an impatient movement of the feet upon the ladder made her start up hastily, and close the lid again. But a long, loud whistling from above showed her that Mr Jarker was still busy with his birds; so once more raising the lid, the poor creature thrust her hand down to a well-known spot beneath the few rags of clothes the box contained, and brought out a pair of little, stained red boots, which she pressed passionately to her lips, the tears gushing from her eyes the while, and a broken hysterical wail burst from her overladen breast. But it was checked instantly, for Jarker’s feet scraped on the ladder, and the boots were hidden beneath the woman’s apron; then the whistling was heard again, and the little boots were brought forth once more.

A pair of tiny red boots, the only relic she had of something that was not—something that she had once warmed within her breast—the breast before now bruised and blackened by a ruffian hand, but beneath which was the same warm, God-implanted love for her offspring that glows in the bosom of the noblest of her sex.

For a moment or two the younger woman gazed in the other’s eyes with a soft, tender, pitying look—a look in this case of true sympathy; and the hand of the lost rested lovingly upon Mrs Jarker’s breast as she whispered softly: “How old was it?”

“Only a twelvemonth,” was the reply, followed by a moan. “But perhaps it was best—perhaps it was best.”

The visitor’s hand still rested upon the other’s breast, and she was about to speak, when an impatient shuffle startled both, for it seemed that Mr Jarker was about to descend; but he came not. And now a look of ineffable sweetness and content came over the well-moulded features of the visitor. She was satisfied now respecting the step she was about to take; for Mrs Jarker’s heart had been laid open to her. A true chord of sympathy existed between them, and she could feel that her little one would be taken to a motherly breast, and protected—protected; but who, she asked herself, would injure one so tender and frail?

But there was no time for further communion between these motherly hearts, for a loud rasp on the ladder told that Mr Jarker was descending, and the visitor prepared to leave.

“You’ve been a-pipin’ again,” growled Mr Jarker to his wife, who had hastily concealed the boots—“pipin’ about that ’ere kid as has gone; and a good thing too. Wot’s the good when here’s another a-coming?” and he looked menacingly at the shivering woman. “I say,” he continued to the visitor, who now stood at the door, “you’ll pay up reg’lar, and in advance!”

“Yes, yes!” she said hoarsely, almost fiercely, as she turned to him with a steady contemptuous look, which made the great brute shuffle about uneasily—“yes, yes, so long as I live;” and the next moment the door closed upon her retreating form.

“Long as you live? Yes; I should just think you will, or else there’ll precious soon be a kid found at somebody’s door, with the perlice, cuss ’em, taking the brat to the workus.—And don’t you pipe no more,” he snarled to the trembling woman, who slowly retreated to the washtub. “A taking of it to the workus, cuss ’em,” muttered Mr Jarker again, removing his fur cap and passing his hand over his cropped head, as if the name of the police, and their probable future duty, had reminded him of former injuries. “Now then, you!” he shouted, as if calling his dog, and he threw the shilling upon the table—“d’yer hear?”

“Yes, Bill,” said the woman meekly, and hastily passing her hands over her dull red eyes before she turned to him the face from which all that was attractive had long since fled.

“Tripe!” said Mr Jarker.

“Yes, Bill,” said his wife.

“Pipe and screw,” growled Mr Jarker.

“Yes, Bill,” said the woman, hurriedly tying on a miserable bonnet.

“And here, you!”

“I wasn’t going, Bill,” said the woman meekly.

“Who said you was?” growled the ruffian; “don’t you be so sharp, now, then. Now, where’s that money?”

“What money, Bill?”

The next moment the ruffian had seized her by the front of her dress and dragged her to him, so that she went down upon her knees. “Don’t you try to put none of your games on me. What did she give you when I was out of sight?” And he put his black face down close to hers, as, half from fear, half from bitterness, her lower lip worked as she tried to keep back the tears, and to answer; but no words would come.

“D’yer hear? What did she give yer?”

“Nothing, Bill,” whispered the woman.

He looked at her fiercely; but though faded and lack-lustre, her eyes blenched not, but gave him back the same true steady look that had always shone for him since—young, ignorant, ill-taught, weak—she had believed he cared for her, and she could be happy with him: not the first of Eve’s daughters that has made the same mistake.

“Get up!” snarled Jarker, loosing his hold; and his wife rose hastily without a word.

“Pint of porter, with half-a-quartern of gin in it.”

“Yes, Bill,” she whispered, and drew on a washed-out shawl.

“And no fiddling, you know; put all the gin in.”

“Yes, Bill,” said the woman, hastily taking the shilling, and descending the creaking stairs to procure her lord’s refreshments; tripe stewed, and gin and beer, being special weaknesses of his when in funds.

“Don’t let her forget to bring some inguns, that’s all,” he muttered as he listened to the retreating steps. He then crushed down the fire with the heel of his heavy boot, and, putting his hand in his waistcoat-pocket, his fingers came in contact with two or three scraps of burnt match, which he took out, looked at thoughtfully, and then burned. “She must have been arter the dawg,” he muttered, and walking to one of the lattice-windows, he opened it and framed himself as he leaned out with his arms resting upon the rotten sill, a splinter of which he picked off to chew. Then he gazed steadfastly across the court at the opposite window, which was hung round with birdcages, whose occupants twittered sweetly, while one, a lark, seemed to fill the court with his joyous song.

This reminded Mr Jarker of his own birds, and, stepping back growling, he looked to see if the little cages hung over his nets all contained water, which they did.

“And a blessed good job for her as they do!” he muttered on finding that his wife had performed this duty. Then walking again towards the front he watched the opposite window, where he could see a pale, sallow face eagerly looking at the birds, while from behind came the sharp sound as of the lash of a whip striking the floor, followed by the shrill yelp of a dog.

Mr Jarker stood thoughtfully watching and listening, as if in doubt upon some particular subject; and as he watched he pulled out that ugly clasp-knife of his that he had opened a short time before in the cellar, and now opening and closing it again, his brow lowered—that is, a trifle more than usual. But he seemed to grow easier in his mind, for he shut the knife with a snap, and thrust it into his pocket; and now he appeared to be moved by that spirit which prompts so many people who can hardly keep themselves to have dumb animals about their homes, probably for the reason that the dumb brutes are faithful, and friends are few—who knows?

“I think I shall have a dawg,” said Mr Jarker to himself, as a louder yelp than usual rang across the court; when he shut the window, and went and stood gazing into the fire once more, till he heard the returning step of his wife, when he roused himself:

“Yes,” said Mr Jarker half-aloud; “I’ll have a bull-pup.”

Volume One—Chapter Six.

The Sorrows of Septimus Hardon.

With a pleasant smile upon his countenance, and a bunch of watercresses in his hand, Septimus Hardon hummed loudly, like some jocular bee, as he entered his rooms one day, when he ceased, for there was a visitor gazing with sympathising eyes upon the flush-cheeked child lying upon Mrs Hardon’s arm.

“I think you had better have advice, Mrs Hardon,” said the visitor, the Rev. Arthur Sterne, the calm, earnest, quiet-looking curate of the neighbouring church.

Lucy Grey, now budding into womanhood, was seated upon the floor by the couch, with a little boy in her lap, and letting the hands of the child on her mother’s arm stray amongst the glossy tresses of her hair.

“Advice? What? doctor?” said Septimus, gazing in his wife’s anxious face; “is Letty really ill, then?” and then in a bewildered way he began rubbing his hands together as if washing them in emptiness, and afterwards drying them upon nothing.

“Let me send in a doctor,” said Mr Sterne kindly, as he took his hat to leave; “there are symptoms of fever, I think. Don’t let it get too firm a hold before you have advice.”

“Thank you, thank you; do send him, please,” said Septimus helplessly. “But—” He was about to alter his request, for just then his hand came in contact with the light leather purse in his pocket, but the curate had hurriedly left the room. Then taking his step-child’s place by the sofa the father parted the golden hair upon the sick girl’s forehead, and anxiously questioned Mrs Septimus respecting the illness.

As the night came on the little one grew wild and restless, and what the mother had taken to be but a slight childish ailment, began to assume a form that added anxiety where it was hardly needed. The doctor had been, and spoken Seriously, and the medicine he had sent had been administered; but the fever seemed to increase, for the child grew worse, starting from fitful sleeps, and calling for sister Lucy to take something away from her. Septimus looked weakly from face to face for comfort, and then wandered about the room, wringing his hands and trying to think this new trouble some horrible dream.

And so days passed—days of trouble and anxiety—during which Mrs Septimus forgot her own ailments, and watched and nursed in turn with Lucy. The doctor had talked as so many doctors will talk, in an indefinite strain, which left the anxious parents in a state of doubt and bewilderment, though it never occurred to Septimus Hardon that so great an affliction could fall upon him, as that he should lose his little one.

About a week after the seizure, Mrs Septimus was watching by the child, who, after partaking eagerly of some tea, had apparently dropped off to sleep.

“Take little Tom down into the office,” whispered Mrs Hardon, “perhaps she will sleep awhile if we keep her quiet.”

So Septimus Hardon, looking dazed and worn with mental anxiety, took his boy in his arms, and Lucy being asleep after watching nearly all night, he left Mrs Septimus with the sick child, and carried the little fellow down into the dusty, unused office, where, taking advantage of his father’s abstraction, the child proceeded to make a heap of type upon the floor, thoroughly covering himself with the black dust, and even going so far as to try the flavour of some of the pieces of metal.

At last the little one began to grow tired, and tried to gain the attention of its father—no light task, for with his face buried in his hands he was seated at his desk trying to see his way clearly through the future—a task so many of us attempt, and some even fancy we have achieved, but only to find the falseness of our hopes when the days we looked forward to have come upon us.

But the child was at last successful, and as Septimus raised his head from the desk, he became aware of the presence of the old man of a few days before, and apparently as far from prosperity as ever.

“Nothing doing; no work,” said Septimus.

“Any little job will do, sir,” said the old man. “Just come to get out of debt, that’s all. What’s it to be, sir?”

“Another time,” said Septimus. “I’ve—”

A loud cry from above cut short his words, and darting to the door, forgetting his customary indecision, he bounded up the stairs, while, finding himself left with a stranger, the little fellow burst into a dismal wail.

“O, Sep, Sep, Sep!” cried his wife, throwing herself into his arms, “is it always to be sorrow; is there always to be a black cloud over our lives?” then tearing herself away she frantically caught the child from Lucy, who, pale and frightened, sat nursing.

“Run, run, Lucy!” cried Septimus hoarsely as he caught a glimpse of his blue-eyed darling’s face; “the doctor, quick!” and then, as the frightened girl ran from the room, he threw himself upon his knees beside his sobbing wife, praying that they might be spared this new sorrow. But before the doctor could reach Carey-street the agonised couple had seen the little weary head cease its restless tossings from side to side, the blue eyes unclose, dilate, and gaze wildly, as if at some wondrous vision; then a plaintive shuddering sigh passed from the pale lips, and Septimus Hardon and his wife were alone, though they knew it not.

The Rev. Arthur Sterne was at the door as Lucy returned, overtaken by the doctor’s brougham at the same moment; but to the agony of all the man of medicine gave one glance at the little form in its mother’s lap, shook his head, and left the room on tiptoe.

“O, sir, Mr Sterne,” cried Lucy, turning with quivering lips and streaming eyes to the clergyman, “tell me, tell me,” she sobbed, clasping one of his hands in hers; “tell me—is it, is it death?”

There was silence in the room for a few moments, and then placing his disengaged hand upon the fair head of the weeping girl, the curate, in low reverent tones, but loud enough to thrill the hearts of the living, said, “No, it is life—the life eternal!”

And now, amidst the bitter sobs of those who mourned, the curate stepped softly from the room, and left the house with bended head. Then there was silence, till a step was heard upon the stairs, which stopped by the partly-closed door, where stood the old compositor with little Tom asleep in his arms, the bright, soft, golden locks mingling like dashes of sunshine with the old man’s ragged, grizzly whiskers. For a few moments the old printer stood gazing into the room, when, waking to the consciousness of the affliction that had befallen its inmates, he turned, and with halting step descended to the office.

At last the recollection of the living came to the stricken mother’s heart, and wildly sobbing as she clasped Lucy in her arms, she asked for her boy.

Half-stunned with this new shock, Septimus Hardon staggered down to where he had left the child, having till his wife spoke forgotten its very existence; but when he reached the office, stricken as he was, he could not but stop to gaze at the group before him. Seated upon a low stool, beneath the dingy skylight of the back-office, where the light that filtered through the foul panes looked dim and gloomy, was the old man with the child in his lap, gazing, too, intently down at the little fair face which so wonderingly looked up into his own—not fearfully, but with a puzzled expression, as if some problem were there that the little brain could not solve; while the biscuit the tiny fist held was hardly touched, but told its own tale of how the old man had carried the child to the nearest baker’s for its purchase. The printer’s back was towards Septimus as he stood in the doorway, and as he listened the old man was apostrophising the child:

“Why, God bless your little innocent face, this is me, old Matt—Matthew Space—old Quad, as they call me; a battered, snuff-taking, drinking old scamp; and here have I been these two hours drinking innocence, and feeling my heart swell till it cracked and the scales fell off. Why—save and bless his little heart, sir!” he cried, for the child saw its father and sprang up—“see how good he is! Work’s slack, sir; let him stop, for it seems to do one good—it does indeed, sir. Why, how rich you must be!”

Septimus Hardon thought mournfully of the treasure he had just lost, and, taking the child, he hurriedly bore it to its mother, telling the old man to wait.

Matthew Space, compositor, waited until the owner of the office came down, when, friendless as he was, Septimus Hardon was glad to turn even to this rough old waif of the streets in his helplessness.

“Why, I wouldn’t do that, sir,” said the old man, after listening for some time in silence; “you may want it to-morrow.”

“But I want money to-day,” cried Septimus fiercely. “Will you give me money? will the world outside? will anybody here in this city of wealth trust me the money to bury my child? Would you have me go to the parish?” He stopped, and the animation that had flashed into his face began to fade again, to leave it dull and despairing.

“Why, as to the first, sir,” said the old man, “I would, upon my soul, if I had it,—I would indeed; but as to the people outside—” and he began to shake his head grimly. “Poor men have no friends, sir—as a rule, you know—as a rule.”

“None!” said Septimus bitterly; “none!”

“But it would be a pity,” said the old man; “such a new, well-cut letter too; and you’ll get next to nothing for it. Gave ’most half-a-crown a pound for it, I dessay?”

Septimus nodded.

“Thought so, sir, and—well, if you must, sir, I’ll help you all the same, and gladly—only too gladly; but I don’t like to see it pawned or sold. You helped me, sir, when it was harder with me than ever it was in my life before, sir; and damme, sir, I’ll sell my shirt, sir, to help you, if it will do any good. In the morning, then, sir, I’ll be here with a barrow.”

“A barrow?” said Septimus.

“Yes; you know, type’s heavy stuff.”

“Matthew Space,” said the snuffly old fellow, screwing his face up as if with disgust, when he stood once more in Carey-street, “Matthew Space, follower of the profession of noble Caxton, as a rule, sir, I respect you. I don’t despise you for your poverty, or your seedy coat, for you are a man of parts and education; but at the present moment, sir, I’m disgusted with you. You have been drinking innocence from the tiny prattling lips of that little child—God bless it!” he cried earnestly, dashing a maundering tear from one eye—“God bless it! a child like that would have made another man of me; and now that poor fellow has lost one like it. But there, sir, I’m disgusted with your ways: a man does what nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand wouldn’t do—lends you almost his last shilling—and now, sir, that an opportunity offers of helping him in his trouble, you make empty professions, false promises, and offer to sell your shirt, you humbug, you—to sell your shirt, sir, when you haven’t got a shirt in the world!”

“That’s true enough,” said the old man, after walking a little way, “true, if it ain’t decent; but it’s a kind of poverty that buttons will always conceal, which they won’t if it’s a coat; while if there is anything that looks beggarly, it’s the want of boots. I’d sooner be without a hat any day in the week. But you’re taking fresh copy, Matt Space, before you’ve finished the old, and leaving out your points.”

The old man cocked his hat very fiercely over the left ear, stuck his hands into his coat-tail pockets, and walked on for some distance, muttering, “Poor fellow—good sort—trump.” All at once he stopped short before a lamp-post, drew his hands from his pockets, and took a pinch of snuff; he then slapped the cold iron upon the shoulder, and, as if addressing the post confidentially, he exclaimed:

“His name’s Hardon, sir; but he isn’t a hard un. He’s as soft as butter, sir, easy as a glove, sir, deep as a halfpenny plate. You might turn him inside out like a stocking. He’d never get on here, he’s too honest. Business! why, he’s about as business-like as—as—as—well, sir, as I am. He’d never any business to be in business; but after all, what’s the good of being a business man, and sharp, and knowing, and deep, if it’s to be hammering on, beating out money day after day to make a hard case for a man’s heart, so as there ain’t room for a kind thought to get in, or a gentle word to come out?”

Old Matt stuck his hat a little more on one side, and giving the post a parting slap, he left the freshly-lit light, quivering and winking down at him as he gave it a nod, and then he crossed the road diagonally to the next post, which he favoured as the last.

“Damme, sir,” he cried, “don’t tell me. I ought to know what the world is, and I think I do. That man’s a trump, sir, if I know anything of character. Soft? well, suppose he is. Don’t tell me: men were never made to be sharp-edged tools, chiselling and cutting one another as hard as ever they can, while the keenest ones chisel the most. They weren’t meant for it; but that’s what they are. And what’s worse, they do so much under the cloak of religion, and snuffle and cant, and tell you to do the same. Things are all wrong, sir, all wrong; and I’m wrong, and according to some people, I’m I don’t know what; but there, sir; there; I’ve done.”

Old Matt walked to another post, to prove he had not done, and began again; but someone coming along the pavement, he shuffled off to the public-house he frequented in Bell-yard, where he discoursed for long enough upon human nature in general, to the great delight of his audience, till his pint of porter was finished, when he hurried off through the wet streets to his lodging.

Volume One—Chapter Seven.

The Doctor and his Dame.

“A tom-cat, smooth-coated, purring rascal,” said old Octavius when he heard the news. “Doctor Hardon, indeed; doctor, bah!” And many of the townspeople of Somesham, though they did not use Octavius Hardon’s language, agreed with him in spirit, and sneered at the new doctor’s visit to Scotland, and the paragraph that by some means found its way into the paper, congratulating the people on the acquisition to their town of a physician. Of course the doctor himself did not know of its existence until it was pointed out to him at one of the public meetings, when he looked perfectly astonished, and declared that it was a matter that he meant to have kept a profound secret from everybody. However, as it was made so public, and in such a manner, of course he felt himself bound to take steps to inform his friends and patients that the fact of his being a physician should make no difference, that he looked upon the degree merely in the light of an honour; and hoped for many years to come to be the simple country apothecary, in whose humble skill his fellow-townsmen would have confidence. Guinea-fees and prescriptions had never been in his thoughts, the honour having been completely thrust upon him, so he said, for he knew that he could command a practice as a country apothecary while he would have starved as a physician. For he had practised for many years in Somesham, while he was greatly annoyed that his brother Octavius would reside there, as the doctor told his lady, to quarrel with him and lower him in the eyes of the people. Doctor Hardon had stood at many sick-beds in the district; spoken smooth nothings respecting the various increases in families which took place beneath his watchful eyes; when in every case, whatever the sex, the child was sure to be the finest he had ever seen in the whole course of his career as a medical practitioner. But the doctor had also worn a great many pairs of black-kid gloves, and many a long-flowing silk scarf upon those other occasions—at those stopping-places of the journey of life; and ill-natured persons had been known to declare that one of Mrs Hardon’s dresses had been composed of these long black-silk strips sewn together. But then people will be ill-natured.

“Thomas Hardon, Esq, MD,” sat at his breakfast-table in his dressing-gown, but his black frock-coat lay upon a chair at his side, ready brushed, and the rest of his costume was of the correct doctorial black. He did not even allow himself to sit down in slippers, but wore boots of the most lustrous black until bedtime. Of an imposing presence, with fine grey hair, a good complexion, sufficiently stout, he was the very acmé of a quiet family doctor; and even if he was not so skilful as he might have been, there was that in his quiet ease and assumption which often gave confidence, and insured faith in trembling patients—matters which had before now worked wonders when the doctor’s medicine alone would have failed. The world is much given to taking people at their own value, and undoubtedly by those who merely looked at the surface, a much higher price would have been set upon the doctor in that imposing suit of black, and that stiffest of stiff white neckcloths, than upon friend Matthew Space in his black shabbiness. But then, of course, the doctor’s double gold eyeglass, gold-chain, studs, diamond ring, and the shape of his repeater seen through the soft black kerseymere waistcoat, added weight in people’s estimation, without taking into consideration that air of profundity, and shake of the noble grey head, which implied so much at so little expense of thought. People at Somesham shook their heads with the doctor, and declared him to be a man of worth; while other people there were who shook their heads with his brother Octavius, and considered him a sham.

But people joined in speaking well of his wife—downright, blunt, plain-spoken Mrs Hardon—who now sat, pale-faced and anxious, opposite to her husband, supplying his wants, while she waited for an answer to her last question, her hand slightly trembling as it held a letter the doctor had lately passed to her.

“You will let me answer this, Tom, won’t you?” she said gently, with all the motherly woman in her tones, and the hard, business, doctor’s wife, who often made up his medicines, and even prescribed in simple cases in his absence, gone. “You will let me answer this, Tom?”

The doctor kept his paper before his face, and read on without condescending to reply.

“Tom,” she repeated, leaning towards him, “Tom, be tender and gentle now, Tom; and—”

Mrs Hardon stopped; for a maid had entered the room with a note, which she handed to Mrs Hardon.

“Confound you!” hissed the doctor as soon as the door was closed; and then, instead of the mild, beaming doctorial countenance, there was his brother’s angry face scowling on his wife—“Confound you! how many times have I told you not to ‘Tom’ me before the servants? No, no, no! if you will have an answer,” he shouted; “let her starve—let her die—let her jump off one of the bridges if she likes; she left me, and she may suffer for it. She sha’n’t come back here to disgrace me in my profession.”

Mrs Hardon was not at all afraid of her husband, and in many of their little matrimonial differences she had been known to come off the better. The blood rose to her cheeks, and she was about to answer angrily, but she checked herself, and, crossing over, laid her hand upon her husband’s shoulder.

“Tom!” she whispered.

“Damn! I tell you I won’t have it!” roared the doctor.

“Hush!” said Mrs Hardon sternly, but with a touch of softness in her voice. “You know I was ill, Tom, when I came back from town last week.”

“Well?” said the doctor, shuffling impatiently in his seat.

“I did not tell you the reason, Tom.”

“Well, what of that?” said the doctor savagely.

“O, Tom!” she said, her voice breaking as she sank at his feet, “I saw her; I met her. She passed me as I was going to my cab, wild-eyed, pale, worn-looking; and O, Tom, if you had seen her too—seen her as I saw her then, when I held out my arms to her and she fled away shamefaced before me—you would have felt, as I did, as I do now, something tugging at your heartstrings, and whispering to you that it was your child that you did not use well, and telling you that if you had done your duty by her she would never have gone to Octavius, and then fled with that base villain. Tom,” she continued softly, “I feel all this. We are getting old, Tom, and what are we to say at the last hour, what forgiveness can we ask for, if our own child is driven from us? She hurried from me then; but see now how it has made her write. Look at the address here; where is it? some horrible part of—O, Tom!”

The exclamation was hardly shrieked from Mrs Hardon’s lips before the letter the doctor had snatched from her hand was blazing upon the fire, he fiercely dragging off his dressing-gown, and preparing to put on his black coat; while, the softness gone from her face, Mrs Hardon stood before him frowning and hard; but far from noticing her husband’s acts, she was gazing introspectively, and trying to recall the address she had so lately read; an address which the more she tried to bring back, the more it seemed to glide from her mind; first a number, then a word, then the whole, and it was gone.

The doctor pulled on his coat by snatches, ejaculated, and went through many of the evolutions favoured by persons who wish to impress others with the fact that they are in a tempestuous passion; but he had resisted the advances made by his wife when she had thrown off the mask that years of worldliness had fixed there, and now she was ready to engage him with his own weapons. As to his real or simulated anger, she valued it not in the least, holding it in the most profound contempt, while a stranger would hardly have believed her to be the same woman who a few minutes before had kneeled at the doctor’s feet.

“I want some money before you go out,” said Mrs Hardon coldly; and the doctor started with surprise at the change the conversation had taken. “I want some money,” said Mrs Hardon in a louder key.

“How much?” said the doctor, calming down as his wife seemed disposed to take the upper hand.

“Twenty-five—thirty pounds,” said Mrs Hardon.

“What for?” said the doctor.

“What for?” said Mrs Hardon fiercely. “Not to send away—not for that, but for the tradespeople’s bills; since you are so proud of your reputation—your professional reputation—have them cleared off. Richards has sent twice, and threatens proceedings;” and she held out the note the maid had brought in; “and now I insist upon knowing how you stand. I will not be kept here in the dark over these speculations. I know matters are going wrong; and do you suppose that I will sit by like a child and see ruin come upon my home; I who was always trusted to keep your books and purse, until you became a physician? There is something wrong, Thomas Hardon, or there would not always be this pinching and holding back of every sovereign. You drive me from your side—me, the wife of five-and-thirty years—when I would be the loving woman. Now, then, I will be the firm woman of the world, and be satisfied upon these points at issue. You had better write me a cheque at once; for I will not be disgraced by the tradespeople, since we are to stand so upon our dignity.”

Doctor Hardon looked viciously at his wife, spoiling his generally placid countenance to a degree that, had one of his best patients seen him then, it would have been a serious loss to the doctor and a gain to the rival practitioner; but he made no movement towards drawing the cheque for which Mrs Hardon stood waiting, till, seeing that nothing was to be gained, she left the room in anger; but the next minute she had returned, to once more lay her hand gently upon the doctor’s arm:

“Have you a heart, Tom?” she whispered. “Is our old age to be an old age of regret? Think of Octavius and his son; look at his desolate, wretched life, and don’t let ours be quite the same.”

Mrs Hardon had had a hard battle with self, and crushed down the angry feelings that had been fighting for exit; for there was the thought of her child in her heart—maternity asserting itself and thrusting aside in its greatness all that was petty and contemptible; but as she stood there appealing to the doctor the struggle grew harder. Obstinate, bitter, cruel, the doctor masked all beneath his cold, calm, professional aspect, treating the weeping woman with a cutting indifference that roused her indignation thoroughly at last; and to conceal her anger she hurried from the room, but this time not to return.

The doctor may have had a heart, but it was thoroughly unmoved by all that his wife had said; in fact the appeal had come at a wrong time, since the same post which brought the letter he had passed over to Mrs Hardon had given him other letters whose contents he so thoroughly knew that he had not even opened them, but, glancing at their directions, thrust them hastily into his pocket, where they acted as so much fuel to feed the fire of his wrath. There was something so unmistakable in the particularly-distinct handwriting upon the envelopes—something so very blue about the paper—that, expecting unpleasant communications, the doctor detected them at a glance, and mentally he went over the contents.

The fact was the doctor was short of cash, and that through more than one unfortunate speculation in which he had embarked. Like a great many more men of moderate income, he had been bitten with the desire to increase it, though the bite came in the first instance from his wife, who scolded him fiercely when, after the MD honour had been thrust upon him, he gave up the union practice, which entailed the loss of the regular salary of one hundred pounds per annum. The doctor said that it was not becoming for a physician to be the medical attendant of the parish; and Mrs Hardon, who was then in a worldly, everyday phase, declared that it was “all fiddlesticks’ ends,” when there was his cheque regularly at certain times, while the greater part of the work could be done by the assistant, who would do very well for the poor people. It was a sin and a shame, she declared, though how connected with fiddlesticks’ ends was best known to herself. There was, however, something relating to the musical science in the matter, for Mrs Doctor Hardon kept harping upon the same string until the doctor snapped it by furiously threatening her if another word was said about it—threats which Mrs Hardon noticed so much that she certainly held her tongue; and she held her hand too, and tried to annoy the doctor by keeping a bad table, which she said so great a loss every year necessitated. Poor woman! she little knew that the time would come when such economy would be forced upon her. What, she asked the doctor, was honour without money? What was the use of her being a physician’s wife if they had nothing to support it with? And, then, too for him to be such an ass—the doctor started and puffed out his cheeks at this—“Yes, ass,” said Mrs Hardon, “as to play into your adversary’s hand like that, when he was on the verge of ruin, as everybody said, and could not have kept on another six months; for you to throw the union practice and a hundred a-year into his lap, and supply him with the material for carrying on the war!”

Mrs Doctor Hardon spoke of the rival practitioner, a poor, gentlemanly man, who had set up some years before in the dusty town of Somesham, and had been fighting ever since with difficulties; for, as in all small country towns in this land of liberty, every new-comer was looked upon as an intruder—a foreigner—and one who will probably interfere with the fine old conservative notions of the place. They don’t want him, and they won’t have him if they can help it. He is clever, perhaps; but they don’t want clever people, and they would prefer being half-killed by the old practitioner to being cured by the new. Trade or profession, it is just the same; and perhaps the acts of the town are only the acts of the country in miniature. Hospitality we have in plenty, and our share of the virtues, no doubt; but truly we English have most strongly in us the propensity for turning our backs upon those who are trying to fight their way on, until they can manage to do without help, when we turn round, smiling with the features that frowned before, pat the successful man upon the back, and say, “Well done!”

Mr Brande, “the new man,” as he was called, had found all this, and had been ready to despair again and again through the many years he had been trying to make a practice; but now the turning-point had come in the honours of Thomas Hardon, Esq, MD; not that he had reaped much present advantage, and it was doubtful if he would have had the practice at all if Doctor Hardon had not had immediate want for a hundred and fifty pounds, and, trusting to Mr Brande’s honour as a gentleman, offered to throw up the parish work on condition of receiving that sum, which Mr Brande gave him in bills, and, what was more, screwed, economised, and met them as they fell due. But Mrs Doctor Hardon did not know this, nor yet the extent of the liabilities her lord had incurred; while the deeper he sunk in that black, clinging mire of debt, the more reticent he grew.

Volume One—Chapter Eight.

Mr Pawley’s Performance.

“Such a beautiful, well-cut letter too!” said old Matt Space, as he stood looking at the empty type-rack from whence the cases had been taken to furnish money for Septimus Hardon’s present expenses. “In such good order too. Puts me in mind of being so low down that I had to sell my own stick. Fellow always seems so badly off when he gets selling his tools.”

A tap at the door, following the sound of wheels, interrupted the old man’s soliloquy, and going to the door he admitted the undertaker, who had just arrived with his shabby Shillibeer hearse and mourning-coach in one, with which he performed the economic funerals so frequent in his district.

“Here you are, then,” said old Matt, grimly surveying the new-comer.

“Yes, here we are,” said the undertaker, in a subdued, melancholy tone; and then he drew out a pocket-handkerchief and wiped his eye, as if to remove a tear—in fact, he did remove a tear—though not sorrow-shed, for Mr Pawley was in very good spirits just then; but he had an eye afflicted with a watery weakness which necessitated the constant application of a handkerchief, and this had passed with a certain class of people for the manifestation of sorrow for their griefs. Some said that this eye had been a little fortune to him. Perhaps it had, but doubtless the crowded courts clustering round Lincoln’s-inn had done more to keep up the incessant “rat-tat-tat-tat” heard in his shop, a sound as if grim Death were tapping with those bony fingers of his at the door.

“Such a feeling man!” said Mrs Sims, who was always at home upon such occasions as this, and had now come to mind Septimus Hardon’s boy, and help; “if she could be of service leastways, for it’s few berrins take place about here, mom, that they don’t send for me,” she said with a sniff, and the corner of her apron to her eye.