"A Story of Dust and Ashes" (continued 7)

A painful silence, and then, while every eye was fixed upon his movements, the great surgeon gave a hasty glance round to see that all was in readiness for the time when moments were more than grains of gold, and would add their weight in one scale of the balance—life or death; but all seemed there, ready hands and the many appliances for checking the rapid flow of life’s stream, and then, with almost an air of nonchalance, he stretched out his arms to secure freedom of action.

Not a whisper, not a movement, the spectators of the scene with craning necks, immovable as groups of statuary, as they gazed from their tiers of benches in this modern amphitheatre down upon the gladiatorial combat taking place, even as of old the Roman citizens may have watched some fight for life or death.

A keen bright flash of the blade in the softened light, and the surgeon thoughtfully describing an imaginary curve in the air with the point just above the insensible patient; then, with a satisfied nod, he leaned forward. There was once more a bright flash of the knife, followed by a bold, firmly-directed cut, deep and long, but clear of vital parts in the wondrous organisation. Then came the spouting gush from many a vessel as the old man’s life-blood rushed from its maze; busy fingers at work, here upon arteries to stay their waste, there applying sponge; one blade changed for another, more manipulation, and orders performed after being given in a calm impressive whisper; a few more busy moments, and the throbbing flow of life arrested; rapidly-moving fingers with sponges, silk, strapping, towels; and the great surgeon softly wiping his hands, cool, calm, and unruffled.

“Very little loss, Mr Grant,” to the next general in command.

“Extremely little,” with a bow and a smile; “most successful operation.”

“Well, well, I think so,” said the great man, unbending somewhat as he arranged his cuffs and brushed off an imaginary speck of dust. He then felt the patient’s pulse for a few moments, nodded with a satisfied air, said a few words to the chief of his staff, bowed once more, and by the time the hospital-dressers had finished their task and the patient was lifted back upon his portable conch, the operator was in the brougham waiting in the street.

Then came once more the murmuring buzz of voices, the reaction and the pallor tried to be laughed down, the porters, and then in a few minutes old Matt was once more in his bed and comfortably arranged before he recovered consciousness.

The house-surgeon and an assistant were beside his bed as he opened his eyes and stared vacantly about, trying to recall what had taken place.

“How sick and faint—what a nasty dream!” he muttered; “but I don’t know, sir,—been as well if it had been true.”

“What would?” said the surgeon, smiling.

“Why, I dreamed, sir, that—why, so it was—so it was, then,” muttered the old man fervently; “thank God, thank God!”

A calm heavy sleep soon fell upon Matt, but he was not free from trouble then. There was the entry continually worrying him; now he knew he had seen it, now he felt that it was only a dream, or a dream within a dream. At last, though, a change came over the scene, and all was prosperity; he had entered into partnership with Septimus Hardon, and purchased the copyright of the Times, whose columns they regularly filled every day with a complete exposure of Doctor Hardon.

But the dream was not founded upon fact, for Septimus Hardon, with hope in his breast, had been to the entrance of the hospital, thinking that now Matt was so much better he would perhaps be ready with some information. But the visitor had been told of the operation, and the old man’s present critical state, while being advised not to see him at that visit; and receiving a promise that a message should be sent in the event of a change for the worse, Septimus Hardon slowly, and sadly disheartened, returned to his law-copying.

End of Volume Two.

Volume Three—Chapter One.

The Breaking of a Barrier.

It was about this time that Aunt Fanny, in the large room at Surrey-street, took to complaining of her neck, and wore a narrow strip of flannel beneath the stiff white-muslin kerchief, while night and morn her servant had to rub the said neck with hartshorn and oil. And truly the old dame’s neck was stiff, and cold might have had some share in producing the stiffness; but undoubtedly it was principally caused by the many sage shakes she gave her head when pondering over her nephew’s state; for in spite of all the medicaments which he patiently allowed her to administer, the old lady effected no cure, and was in consequence sorely troubled in her own mind.

But she was not so sorely troubled as the object of her interest, who angered himself in vain because of the chaotic state of his mind. Battle, battle—ever the same useless struggle, till he was ashamed of his weakness and want of self-control. To-day victor, to-morrow vanquished; now reviling himself for his want of faith and cruel suspicions, which he owned were almost baseless; the next day a slave to duty, and forbidding his heart to harbour further thoughts of her he now called his enemy. Work seemed the only refuge, and he toiled on. Study he could not; but he visited from house to house in the fold of Bennett’s-rents, where the tainted sheep of his flock were gathered; and hiding from himself his real feelings—a shallow pretence—he knew the while how anxious he was respecting that little ewe-lamb.

But he drew a mask over his face, telling himself it was his true countenance; and with a calmness that was but on the surface, he called frequently to see the invalid mother, timing, however, his visits that they might be made while Lucy was absent—for duty’s sake (and he now knew pretty well when she was likely to visit the warehouse); while, when he had visited the Bents, and returned without seeing her, he credited duty largely, and praised his own self-denial. All steps, he flattered himself, towards the final conquest which he would achieve; but though casting out the weak thoughts, he told himself that it was his duty to satisfy his heart concerning the doubts which so constantly tormented him.

How often the hours came when he scorned his dissimulation, and tore off the mask, none knew; but his face grew more pale and livid, and the grey hairs that sprinkled his temples were thicker than of old.

It happened one day, though, when he and Lucy had not encountered since he saw her bending over the child from Mrs Jarker’s room, that, visiting from house to house and room to room, Mr Sterne stood in front of Mrs Sims’; but that lady was from home; so hearing the merry voice of the laughing child, he had ascended the stairs to find Lucy in the bird-catcher’s attic. For the little face had been pressed against the blackened window, and a pair of bright little eyes had peered, hour after hour, from beneath the tangled golden hair, watching the busy fingers at the sewing-machine, till with heart aching for the neglected babe, and to study her mother, who objected to its being brought into the room, Lucy had crossed the court, and gone up and played with the little thing, laughing merrily at the child’s delight, though a tear stood in her eye more than once as she evaded the child’s eager, oft-repeated question of “When mammy come back?” Bill had gone out with his nets, and most probably would not be back until night; so the child had been left alone with some food in the dreary room, to play or cry itself to sleep, unless Mrs Sims should be there to attend to its wants. But there was that one spot by the window where she could look down upon Lucy; and there, day after day, she would stand without murmuring, attracted by that wondrous sense which draws children to the loveable and true. Lucy’s heart yearned as she gazed up from time to time at the child, and she longed earnestly for the season when its mother should make fresh arrangements; but for some reason she came not, and Lucy had not seen her since Mrs Jarker’s death.

And now the golden hours for which the little soul had longed had come again. Lucy was with her, and, herself a child for the time, she laughed merrily at the little one’s delight.

Panting, tumbled, and flushed with exercise, Lucy stood at last, returning an escaped curl to its bondage, a bright smile playing round her ruddy lips, which parted to display the white teeth beneath, when the door opened, and, with a frown upon his brow, the curate stood in the entrance gazing upon the scene before him.

“In that ruffian’s room—there of all places in the world!” doubt whispered to him; at a time, too, when their chance meetings had been attended by a cold reserve on Lucy’s part—a reserve which his doubting heart misinterpreted; for he could not in his blindness see the cost at which it was maintained. And yet this reserve had pleased him while it pained, for he at times acknowledged the interest he took in her welfare. But it mattered not, he said, for his desire was but to try and save her from evil, nothing more; and the oftener he listened to these delusive whisperings the stronger grew a voice within, telling him that his reasoning was false, and that he was forgetting duty, position—all, in a love for one who grew colder and more distant at every meeting. Wearily, though, he kept on building up a wall between them—a wall built upon the sand. Stone by stone he laid, telling himself that it was for duty’s sake, as he toiled on helplessly at his self-imposed task. True, he might have satisfied himself of the motive for Lucy’s actions, which to him wore a blurred and strange aspect; but to others her name seemed a sealed book, one which he shrank from opening, lest he should at the same time reveal the secret of his own heart.

And now he stood at the door of that beggarly room, where was the bed over which he had so lately bent to whisper comfort to the suffering woman, or knelt by its side to ask mercy for the poor sufferer and a blessing on the helpless child. There was the same bare look of misery in the wretched place; but as the sun streamed through the great leaden lattice, all seemed glorified and brightened by the presence there. Unseen he gazed on, while the glow of orange light flooded the room, and played round the graceful form of Lucy, as, starting again, she was pursued by the laughing child, varying her attitude each moment as she eluded its grasp.

Suddenly the child struck itself sharply against a chair, and broke into a whimpering cry; but the caressing arms, the words of endearment, and the loving kiss soothed the pain instantly, and a smile came over the sunny face once more; when Lucy stood as if transfixed, the merry light faded from her eyes, the smile from her lip, and then the blood flushed to her temples, but only to retreat and leave her deadly pale, for in an instant the wall so laboriously built up, and at so great a cost in suffering, was swept down by the flood of passion. Arthur Sterne knew that the battle had been in vain, and that he was but man; while doubt, everything, was cast to the winds as he was by her side, her hands clasped in his, telling her of his beaten-down love, his hopes, his fears,—all, all in the impassioned burst of words raised by the tempest of a strong man’s love; for the sandy foundation was undermined, and the last trace of the barrier swept away.

And what said she? No words came in reply to his appeal. At first, startled, confused, overcome, she shrank from him, pale and trembling; but as his words came pouring forth, making cheek and neck burn, she knew that no greater bliss could be hers; and the trembling lids of her dark-blue eyes were slowly lifted to meet his, when, as if scathing her once more, came the recollection of his bitter, contemptuous look, his long coldness, and even scorn; and snatching away her hands, she burst into tears and darted from the room.

Pale and troubled in mind as to what to attribute Lucy’s behaviour, his brain in a whirl of doubt, Arthur Sterne stood gazing at the door, until, turning, he became aware that the opposite attic window was being opened. The lark began to twitter as the hand of Jean Marais secured it outside; and then he saw the wild dark eyes of the youth begin to earnestly watch the room.

Turning with a few kind words to the astonished child, who crouched in a corner, Arthur Sterne made his way from the house; and a sad evening spent Aunt Fanny, in her anxiety for the “wilful boy” who angrily rejected her advice. He was not ill, he said; but the good dame nipped her lips together; while, retiring at last, the curate spent the night pacing his chamber-floor, trying to examine the tangle in his heart, but only to conclude that, come what might, difference of position should be no bar between him and Lucy; for, driving away, as he thought successfully, the doubt that still assailed him, he declared to himself that she possessed virtues before which birth and dowry paled and became as naught.

“Unstable as water,” muttered the curate to himself, though, days after, when meeting with Lucy alone in the front-room of their place in Bennett’s-rents, the barrier was again broken down—the barrier that time had forced him to renew—while the words he could not but utter came pouring forth, to bring no response.

Septimus was away with his boy, and Mrs Hardon slept in the back-room; and the words of Arthur Sterne were low and deep as the passion that prompted them. But there was no response—no loving look in reply—naught but the pale cheek and quivering eyelid, tears and looks of half-anger; for still clung to Lucy the recollection of his scorn and contempt, his misinterpretation of her motives; and the hands he clasped were cold and drawn away.

Then anger took the place of love—a foolish, mad anger, which robbed him of his self-control, and made him utter words beneath whose passion the poor girl bent as bends flower before the storm. He uttered words then that an hour after he would have given anything to recall; telling her angrily of ma mère and her slighting hints, of Jarker’s familiarity, and lastly of the meeting he had witnessed in the Lane; unheeding the hands held up so deprecatingly, the appealing looks, and the tear-wet, pallid cheeks; for, as he told himself again and again that night, he was mad—mad in his passionate love for one unworthy—mad in his words; and he writhed as he recalled the way in which he felt that he had lowered himself.

“I insist—I hold it as a right!” he had exclaimed; “tell me, Lucy, who was that woman? Do you know her character?” And he clutched her wrist angrily as he spoke.

He said no more then, for Lucy’s face was aflame, and she started hastily to her feet, facing him almost as it were at bay, and vainly trying to free her hand from his grasp.

“Do your parents know of your meetings?” he exclaimed.

“No, no, no!” she cried excitedly, as she glanced towards the back-room door.

“Then I must—nay,” he added with almost a cowardly look of triumph, for the weakness of the man was triumphant that afternoon, and he yielded to all that he had hitherto triumphed over—“I will tell them,” he said, “for your good.”

“For pity’s sake,” whispered Lucy, “Mr Sterne. Ah, pray, sir, stop—pray stay! Do not think ill of me—”

But there Lucy ceased, for she was alone; and once more scornfully, with the cold bitter look, Mr Sterne had dashed her hand from him in contempt and turned from the room, into which Mrs Hardon now came to find Lucy weeping as though her heart would break.

Volume Three—Chapter Two.

Snuff.

Old Matt did not wake again for many hours, but, as the days slipped by, he partook with avidity of all that was allowed him, and grumbled for more. His friend the house-surgeon, whom he could look at now without imagining that he took notes inimical to his friend Septimus Hardon’s interest, reported favourably of his condition; while Septimus himself came again and again, each time more eager to get at that which was hidden by the confusion in old Matt’s brain.

“If he had only been so jolly anxious about the Somesham affair, first start off, what a difference it would have made!” grumbled Matt.

But it seemed useless to try and draw the old man’s attention to things he had talked of in the days shortly before his entry of the hospital, for here all seemed blank.

“Well, yes, sir,” Matt would say, “I have some faint recollection of saying something about medicine and attendance; but do you know, sir, I begin to think that one’s memory is in one’s blood? and they took so much out of me that last time, that I can’t remember anything at all. ‘Medicine and attendance,’ did I say? Why, it must have been the medicine and attendance here, and those old cats of nurses. My thinking apparatus is terribly out of order, sir; and when I try to look back at anything, it’s like peeping at it through a dirty window. P’r’aps it won’t come bright and clean again, eh?”

“Don’t try to think,” said Septimus with a sigh. “You will recollect some day; so let it rest.”

“Well, sir, that’s just what I should like to do; but since you’ve asked me, I can’t; for things won’t go just as I like, and I feel all in a muddle. Let’s see, now: you said something about this at your last visit, didn’t you, sir? when I asked you about that talking woman and the office for servants; for I do recollect that, you know.”

“Yes,” replied Septimus, “at every visit.”

“Just so,” said Matt; “I thought you did; but I can’t tell a bit about it now. Sometimes it seems that I heard it; sometimes that I read it, or saw it against a wall, or dancing before my eyes; but let’s see,” he said vacantly, as he held his hand to his head, “what was it we wanted to find?”

“The doctor’s books, or the doctor,” said Septimus.

“To be sure,” said the old man; “I haven’t got it right yet; and really you know, sir, this isn’t a first-class place to get right in, and they won’t part with me yet, though I do long now to be well, and at liberty for a peep at the old law-courts and Lincoln’s-inn once more. I mean to have a holiday, and spend it among all the posts in the old square as soon as I’m out; I’m getting so light-hearted and jolly, sir. Why, it will be quite a treat to be somewhere amongst a bit or two of dirt once more; we’re so clean here.”

“Only a little longer, Matt,” said Septimus smiling.

“You see,” said Matt, “there’s so much to upset one about. What with the screen round this bed, and the screen round that bed, and the groans and sighs, ah, and even shouts sometimes, there’s plenty to make a poor fellow feel low-spirited. Now there’s a chap over there in that bed seems to have taken it into his head that he suffers more than anyone who ever came into the place, and howls and goes on terribly; while the bigger and stronger people are, sir, the more weak they seem to me to be in bearing pain. I believe, after all, you know, sir, that the little weak women beat us hollow.”

“Ah!” said the patient spoken of, surmising from Matt’s gestures that he was being referred to—“ah! Mr Space, you are talking about me, sir, and my groans, and it’s very hard and unfeeling, sir. You may suffer yourself some day.”

The visitor felt uncomfortable; but old Matt took it up directly.

“That’s cool, anyhow,” he gasped; “why, what do you mean? haven’t I suffered as much as any of you, and been through two operations, and lived ’em out too? Why, what more would you have? It would have killed a big fellow like you, I know.”

The patient replied with a groan, and began muttering about the unfeeling behaviour of those about him, from whom, he said, he had expected a little sympathy.

This roused the ire of a neighbour who had lost a leg through being run over by a coal-wagon, and he now took up the matter, followed by several others; so that a wordy warfare seemed imminent.

“That’s it, go on,” growled Matt in an undertone. “They’re all getting better, sir; and, consequently, they’re as cross as two sticks. What a thing it is! There seems to be no gratitude amongst them; and really, sir, if it wasn’t for the nurses, it wouldn’t be such a bad place to come to—that is, for a man with strong nerves, you know. Now just look at ’em, how they are going it!”

The murmurings and dissensions of the other patients seemed to have quite a good effect upon old Matt, who forgot his own pains in the troubles of those around him.

“You don’t know how much longer you will be here?” said Septimus.

“Not for certain, sir; but I think only for a few more days. But it’s wonderful what a difference they have made in me. I mean to go in for a fortune, sir, as soon as I’m out; and then I shall make my will, and leave half to the hospital. Now I’ve got the worst of it all over, I amuse myself with taking a bit of notice of what goes on around me, and listening to what’s said; and it’s wonderful what an amount of misery comes into this place—wonderful. I’ve known of more trouble since I’ve been in here, sir, than I should have thought there had been in the whole of London; and that’s saying no little, sir. Lots die, you know; but then see how many they send out cured. I don’t see all, but one hears so much from the talking of the nurses. I expected when I came here that there would be plenty of accidents, broken bones—legs, arms, and ribs, and so on; but there, bless you, the place is full of it; and they’re getting to such a wonderful pitch now, with their doctoring and surgery, that they’ll be making a new man next, out of the odd bits they always have on hand here.”

“I suppose so,” said Septimus drily.

“Ah, you may laugh, sir,” said Matt; “but it’s wonderful to what a pitch surgery has got. Now, for instance, just fancy—”

“There,” cried Septimus, “pray stop, or I must leave you. I fancy quite enough involuntarily, without wishing to hear fresh horrors. It’s bad enough having to come into the place.”

“Lor’ bless you, sir,” said Matt, “you should listen to the nurses, when one of ’em happens to be in a good humour. Do you know when that is, sir?”

“When pleased, I suppose,” said Septimus.

“Just so, sir; the very time. And when do you suppose that last is?”

Septimus shook his head.

“You don’t know, of course, sir. Why, when the patients are getting better.”

“I might have supposed that,” said Septimus wearily.

The old man chuckled, and looked brighter than he had looked for weeks. “Yes,” he said, “it’s when the patients are getting better, and there’s plenty of port-wine and gin on the way. That’s the time to find the nurse in a good humour; and she’ll tell you anything, or do anything for you.”

Septimus Hardon looked weary and anxious, and fidgeted in his chair, as if he longed to change the conversation, but the garrulous old man kept on.

“Tell you what, sir, these nurses seem to get their hearts hardened and crusted over; and then when you give them a little alcohol, as the teetotallers call it, the crust gets softened a bit, and things go better. I used to growl and go on terribly at first; but it’s no use to swim against the stream. I used to grumble when I found that they drunk half my wine and watered my gin; but I’m used to that sort of thing now: for which is best—to drink all one’s liquor, or keep friends with the nurse? Last’s best; and they say I’m a dear patient old creature. I look it too, don’t I?” said the old man with a grim smile.

“But,” said Septimus, “I must soon go; and I should like a word or two about my affairs first.”

“All right, sir; we’ll come to that directly. I’m an invalid, and you must humour me. But this is the way of it. My nurse comes to me, like an old foxey vixen as she is, and—‘Now, my dear, how are we?’ she says. ‘Only middling, nurse,’ I say. ‘I’ve brought you a glass of wine to cheer you up,’ she says. ‘Don’t care about it a bit,’ I say; ‘don’t feel wine-hungry.’ ‘O,’ she says, ‘but the doctor ordered it. Now, take it, like a good soul. You must want it.’ ‘Not half so bad as some people do,’ I say. ‘Toss it off, nurse; and just punch my pillow up a bit, it’s got hard and hot.’ ‘Bless my heart, no,’ she says, ‘I couldn’t think of such a thing!’ so she sets the wine down, and puts my head a bit comfortable. ‘The wine’s for you; so, now, take it directly; I couldn’t touch it—I don’t care for wine.’

“‘Of course you don’t,’ I say to myself; and then I begin to talk to her a bit, and to tell her that she must have a sad wearing life of it, when the old tabby sets up her back and purrs, and likes it all—looking the while as tigerish, and sleek, and clawey, as the old cats can look. Then I tell her she wants more support, and so on, when all at once she finds out that there’s some one else to attend upon, and I must drink my wine directly; so I take the glass and perhaps drink it; but more often I only just put it to my lips and set it back upon the tray, when she’s satisfied. Of course, you know, it would be instant dismissal for a nurse to drink a patient’s wine or spirits if it was known; but any thing left is different altogether. You know, sir, it’s a dreadfully beggarly way of going to work, only as the saying goes, you must fight some one we know of with his own weapons: and now we are the very best of friends possible. You’d be surprised how we get along, and all through going without a glass now and then. The best of it is, though, that she never thinks of watering it now, like she would for another patient; so that what I miss in quantity I get in strength, and, you know, she’ll do anything for me in a minute—that is, if she feels disposed.”

“But,” said Septimus, “it seems strange that you should be so left at the mercy of these women.”

“What can you do?” said the old man.—“There, I ’ve just done, sir, and we’ll go into that directly.—Who can you get to go through what these women do, unless it’s these Sisters of Mercy, who many say are to become general? Suppose there was a strike, eh? Look how few people you can get to come and run the risk of fevers and all sorts of diseases. Sisters of Mercy, eh? God bless them for it then, if they will; but I hope I may never want their help, all the same. But there, we won’t talk about it, only you want iron women a’most to go through it all, and it’s not a life to be envied. Why, if it ain’t almost leaving-time, sir, and you’ve kept me chatting about my affairs here, and yours are nowhere. How are you getting on?”

“Badly, Matt, badly. But I’ve very little to say, Matt, for I was unable to get on without you,” replied Septimus, smiling at the old man’s coolness.

“’Spose so,” said Matt laconically; “let’s see, sir, I think you never went any more to Finsbury?”

“Where was the use,” said Septimus drearily; “who can tell where a day-book fifty years old can be?”

“True,” said the old man thoughtfully; “butter-shop, most likely; and it wouldn’t pay to go all over London buying half-pounds of ‘best Dorset,’ on the chance of getting the right sheet. I can’t see it yet, sir; and still I seem to fancy we shall do it, though everything about it seems to be all in a muddle.”

Septimus Hardon seemed to be of the same opinion, for he sighed, took his hat, and went homeward in a frame of mind that made him feel disposed to bury the past and its cares, and look only to the future; while old Matt picked up a newspaper, and began mechanically folding it into small squares—butter-shop size.

“No,” he muttered, “not much chance of finding that particular scrap of paper, if we don’t get hold of the book through the old doctor’s heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns. And that’s where we ought to begin; putting ads in the Times, and setting private inquirers to work, and all on to that tune; only, to play that tune, sir, you want money. Some careless hussy has burnt that scrap of paper, sir, long ago, to light a fire; or it has been used for twisting-up screws of tobacco, or ha’porths of toffee, or hundreds of other things as some beggarly shop or another is licensed to deal in. Only fancy someone lighting his pipe with that valuable little scrap of paper! ‘Medicine and attendance, Mrs Hardon, two, twelve, six!’ I’ll be bound to say that was the figure, and I’d give something to get hold of that bit. Wonder whether it’s selfishness, and thinking of what it would be worth to me? S’pose be; for this is a rum world, and I’m no better than I should be. But who’d ever have thought this would have come out of my going to his office and asking for a job? Don’t matter, though, about what I feel, for he’d have come to see me here safe enough, even if it had not been about his affairs; for he’s a trump, sir, a trump: but all the same, it’s a pity he ain’t got more in him—worldly stuff, you know.”

Old Matt sat very thoughtfully for awhile, and then began to mutter again.

“Wish I had a pinch of snuff once more. There now; I’m blest. Only to think of that! me having my box in my pocket, and to forget all about it—shows what my head’s worth now. Bravo! though; that seems to clear one’s head wonderfully. I shall recommend its use in lunatic asylums for mental diseases; fine thing, I believe. Only to think, though, for me to get that into my head about that entry I had seen, and trying to write it down, and then for it to be clean gone once more! S’pose I did think of something of the kind, or see it, or something. Heigho!” he sighed; “I must have been precious bad though, sir, confoundedly bad. Thank goodness it’s all over, though, for this time; and I’m going to walk out soon, instead of, as I expected, being taken to the students’ lodgings in small pieces, wrapped up in paper—paper—waste-paper—by jingo! though, I’ll have a go at the waste-paper everywhere. I’ll search every waste-paper shop in London, beginning at Mother Slagg’s—beg her pardon, Gross by this time I suppose, and—and—hooray!” he shouted wildly, to the intense astonishment of the fellow-patients, as he tossed his newspaper in the air. “Snuff for ever! that pinch did it. Only let me get out of this place. At last!”

Volume Three—Chapter Three.

Mr Jarker’s Traits.

Men of business cannot afford to continue their grief for any length of time, hence at a very short date after the death of his wife, Mr William Jarker, bird-fancier, bird-catcher, and pigeon-trapper, to be heard of at any time at the Blue Posts, Hemlock-court, by such gents as wanted a few dozen of blue-rocks or sparrows for the next trap-match at Wormwood Scrubbs, stood before a piece of looking-glass nailed to the wall of his room with three tin-tacks, a ragged, three-cornered, wavy-looking scrap, from which, if a little more of the quicksilver had been rubbed off, it would never again have been guilty of distorting the human face divine. Upon this occasion it played strange pranks with the expressive countenance of Mr Jarker, as he stood, with oily fingers, giving the required gloss and under-turn to his side-locks, which were of the true “Newgate-knocker” pattern, their length denoting how long a time Mr Jarker had been running fancy free without troubling her Majesty’s officials for his daily rations and lodging, in return for which he would scrub, polish, and clean to order. Mr Jarker seemed to take extra pains over his toilet, arranging his neck-tie and the silver-mounted lens, buttoning-up his red-plush waistcoat with the fustian back and sleeves, cleaning his finger-nails with the broken-out tooth of a comb, before he stood in front of the glass and smirked at himself.

Now this was a mistake on Mr Jarker’s part, for his was a style of countenance that would not bear a smirking; there was too much stiffness of contour in the various features, a blunt angularity which resisted the softening sweetness of a smirky smile, and the consequence was, that if he had smirked at a stranger, the said stranger would have flinched, from a very strong impression that Mr Jarker was rabid and about to bite. However, mistaken or not, Mr Jarker smirked several times, and after various patterns, before he frowned, which gave a much more respectable cast to his countenance, the scowl being most thoroughly in harmony. Mr Jarker frowned, for one of the side-locks would not keep in position and retain the required bend when he had crowned himself with his slouchy fur-cap; so the erring hair had to be again oiled, combed, and wetted with a solution of brown sugar, which the operator moistened in a natural way in the palms of his hands, then the lock was smoothed and tucked under, and proved a fixture; and now the cap was again placed in position, and displayed a thin wisp of crape fastened round it by means of a piece of string; for being a soldier engaged in the battle of life, Mr Jarker did not doff his uniform, but confined himself to the above slight manifestation of the fact that he was a widower.

Apparently satisfied with his aspect, which was a little more villainous than usual, Mr Jarker turned his attention to the child, who crouched in a corner of the room with a piece of bread in her hand, watching him with her large blue eyes, very round and staring, but evidently pressing her little self as far away from the fellow as possible.

“Ah! and so she comes and plays with the kid when I’m out, does she?” said Mr Jarker, in a ruminating tone. “Ah! we knows what that means, my chicking, don’t we?”

The little thing pressed herself closer to the wall, and Mr Jarker stood very thoughtfully at the window for a few minutes, gazing down at where Lucy’s sewing-machine beat rapidly; but Mr Jarker was not aware that in his turn Jean Marais was watching him fiercely, his dark eyes seeming to flash beneath his overhanging penthouse brows, as he eagerly scanned every motion of the ruffian, looking the while as if prepared to spring across the court at his throat.

“Ah! we knows what that means, don’t we, my chicking?” repeated Mr Jarker, turning once more from the window. “Come here to yer daddy, d’yer hear!”

But though hearing plainly enough, the little thing only shrank back closer into her corner; when, with an oath, the fellow took two steps forward and seized the little thing by its pinky shelly ear, and dragged it, whimpering and trembling, into the middle of the attic, where he made “an offer” at it as if to strike, but the frailty and helplessness of the little one disarmed even him, and as his eyes wandered to the window to see that no opposite neighbour could watch them where they stood, his arm fell to his side as he sat down.

“Now, then!” cried Mr Jarker, “no pipin’; don’t you try none of them games with me, my young warmin’. ’Cos why, it’s ware hawks to yer if yer does. Now hook it back to that there corner.”

The child’s eyes were turned timidly and wonderingly up to his, as it shrank back once more to the corner of the attic.

“Now, then!” cried Jarker sharply, “come here again.”

Like an obedient dog in the course of training, the little thing crept back to his side, and then the tiny face grew more wondering and timid, the eyes more round, and it was very evident that the little brain, soft, plastic, and ready to receive any impression, was working hard to understand the meaning of the ruffian’s words. Bright and beautiful as the faces shown to us on canvas as those of angels, the little countenance, shining the brighter for the squalor around, was turned up more and more towards Jarker, gazing so fixedly and earnestly at him that he grew uneasy, fidgeted and shuffled his feet, and then his eyes sank, guilt cowering before innocence; for, quite disconcerted by the long, steady gaze, the ruffian rose and turned away, growling and muttering, “She’s gallus deep for such a little un.” He then took a short peep at his pigeons, walked back to the window, and stared long and heavily at the white hands he could see busy at the sewing-machine, and then turned once more to the wondering atom, trying to soften himself as he stooped down, but the child only flinched as from a coming blow when he patted the soft, bright curls.

“Here, come here,” he said gently, and he drew the child between his knees as he sat down.

“Now mind this here: nex’ time she comes and plays with you, my chickin’, perhaps she’ll say, ‘Would you like me to be your new mammy?’ she’ll say; and then, ‘Yes,’ says you; d’yer hear? ‘yes,’ says you. Now say it.”

But the little one only continued her wondering gaze till the fellow left her, and slouched out of the room, after raking the last cinder from the fire, in performing which he knocked the bottom of the grate from its frail hold, and then, in his endeavours to replace it, burned his fingers, and ejaculated so loudly that the eyes of the child were turned upon him more wonderingly than ever.

And then—was it that sympathy for the child moved the inmate of the opposite attic, or that he had a natural hatred for Jarker? Jean turned angrily from the window to a cage of half-a-dozen linnets the fellow had brought him an hour or two before, and to his mother’s rage and astonishment, seemed about to wreak his fury upon the birds. He seized one in his hand, and was about to wring its neck, but ma mère leaped forward to stay him, when his fierce gesture sent her back to her seat to watch him. But he did not kill the birds, but carried the cage to the window, and then let them go, one by one, till the last bird hesitated at the wire door for a few moments, and then fled, with a wild chirp of joy, far away into the smoky air.

“Jean, Jean! but you are bête—fou!” exclaimed his mother, trembling with fear and rage at this folly, as she thought of the money he had given for the birds.

“I hate him, I hate him!” hissed Jean furiously, while, watching him through her closed eyes, the old woman nodded quickly to herself, as she muttered and thought of her own early days, and it seemed to her that Jean’s heart was as easy to read as that printed book at his side.

But at this time Mr Jarker was slouching out of his room, and shouldering his way down the stairs, stopping the blowing of Mrs Sims’ fire for an instant, as he growled audibly in passing; then down into the court, where the index fingers of his hands were thrust into his mouth, and he was about to make a long and piercing whistle for the delectation of some passing pigeons as they flew over the strip of heaven seen from the flags of the court; but a glance at the first-floor window where dwelt the Hardons checked him. The next minute, though, the birds repassed, and Bill whistled loudly again and again; but the birds would not listen to this shrill voice of the charmer, the charmer himself, side-locks and all, went and stood at the bottom of the court, against the bright blue gilt-lettered boards of the public, where he rubbed the shoulders of his sleeve-waistcoat shiny, as he stood slouching about, and sucking one end of his spotted neck-tie.

“Whatcher going to stand, Bill?” said a gentleman of his acquaintance, a gentleman with a voice singularly like one that had been heard in the old Grange at Somesham upon a memorable night. This gentleman had a piece of straw in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, his coiffure being of the same order as that of Mr Jarker, while, being evidently of a terpsichorean turn of mind, he enlivened the street with a “pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pit-pit, pat,” toe-and-heel dance upon the cellar-flap of the public-house, where, his boots being stout and well-nailed, and the flap very hollow beneath, his efforts were attended with so much noise that the potboy of the establishment thrust out a closely-cropped head between the swing doors, where he held it as if in the process of being shorn off, at the same time requesting the light-heeled gentleman to “Drop that ’ere now, come!”

But instead of standing anything to quench the thirst of the new-comer, Mr Jarker stood upon the order of his going; for just then, laden with a large parcel of work, Lucy Grey passed out of the court and encountered Mr Sterne, who saluted, and then turned with a grave, pained countenance to gaze after her, as he saw Jarker follow, slouching along as if his boots were soled with lead, diver fashion, and he of so ethereal a nature that the ponderous metal was necessary to prevent him from shooting up into heaven like a stickless rocket minus the tail of fire.

The curate turned thoughtfully up the court, and began his round of visits, listening to complaints here, supplications there, but finding nowhere rest. He went thoughtfully through his round of duties that day, hearing and speaking mechanically, for always before his eyes there was the light, graceful form of Lucy, followed by the hound-like Jarker, and as he thought the lines grew deeper and deeper in his forehead. He listened to Mrs Sims’ praises of the child—praises delivered in a lachrymose tone, as a strong odour of rum pervaded the place. He listened to ma mère’s complaints of Jean, and felt an insinuation against her fellow-lodger’s fair fame stab him as it were to the heart; while surprised he gazed upon the fury with which the son turned upon his mother; and then descending, his task nearly done, the curate sat by the bedside of Mrs Hardon.

There stood the sewing-machine in the next room; there was the chair in which Lucy had been so lately seated, and where even now he could picture her form. But, silent and abstracted, he listened for the twentieth time to the story of the murmuring woman’s troubles, and what she had suffered since they had been in town. He listened, but he was asking himself the while whether Lucy merited the love he would pour at her feet—asking himself whether it was possible for a pure, fair, spotless lily to bloom amidst the pollution around. Still, too, came the remembrance of the words of the old Frenchwoman—“Our beauty, some of us.” Once admitting doubt to his breast, the strange thoughts teemed in, bringing up the woman he had seen and tracked in vain, and above all the low ruffian whom he had seen dogging the fair girl’s footsteps but that very day, when love had whispered, “Follow!” and pride cried, “Nay, stand aloof!” for he recalled their last interview. Then, again, he asked himself how dared he believe words that slurred her fair fame, when his conscience whispered to him that they were like their source—vile; but, surrounded as he was by vice and misery, might he not well wonder whether Lucy’s fair face spoke truth in its candour-tinged aspect, or was like the hundreds he encountered in his daily walks—fair to view, but with a canker within?

He told himself that he could watch her no longer—that he could not play the spy; and once again he prayed for strength to conquer the passion that seemed to sway him at its will; for he could not comprehend the behaviour of its object. Love he had thought to be buried for ever with his betrothed; but from her grave the seed seemed to have returned to him untainted by time, and with all its quickening, germinating powers ready to shoot forth and blossom in a wealth of profusion for another. And he knew that it must be lavished upon Lucy, even though she still repulsed him. And now, again, his eye brightened as, dashing down the sinister thoughts, he would see only her faith and truth, smiling at poverty when he called up the riches of her heart—riches that he saw poured forth for the murmuring parent, for whose wants she toiled on incessantly, winning for her many a comfort that the sick woman could not else have enjoyed; and even then with the overflowings of her young heart ready for the neglected child.

“For the neglected child!” What a gloomy starting-point for another train of thought, embracing its mother, tall, dark, and rouge-cheeked; Jarker, the ruffian, tracking Lucy’s steps; and lastly, ma mère, who seemed even then whispering in his ear, “Our beauty, some of us!” Arthur Sterne acknowledged that he was weak, though he fought hard with his soul-assailing enemies; while the track of the storm he was encountering was marked in his face, as he strolled slowly homewards, but only to pause startled at the mouth of the court.

Volume Three—Chapter Four.

Lucy’s Trouble.

Lucy’s eyes turned very dim as soon as she had passed Mr Sterne, and things wore a strangely blurred aspect. She would have given worlds to have thrown herself upon his breast, and told all—of Agnes Hardon and her sorrow, confided to her alone, as the suffering woman begged of her to love her for her child’s sake, and not to turn upon her the cold bitter eyes of the world at large; and again and again Lucy had taken the passive, wasted, tearful face of Agnes to her breast, in the rare and stealthy meetings they had had, and wept over her, little knowing that Agnes possessed a secret which she felt that she could not divulge for the sake of those whom she had injured. Again and again Lucy had implored her leave to confide in Septimus Hardon, but Agnes had refused so firmly, telling her that the day her presence was betrayed would be that of their last meeting—telling her so angrily, but only to kneel at her feet the next moment, and ask her to bear for a little longer with an erring woman, whose stay in this world might not be for long. And so Lucy toiled on, bearing the scathing breath of calumny; pointed at by suspicion; and wounded again and again in her tenderest feelings by the only man she had ever felt that she could love. They were her own words, poor girl, though little had she seen of the world at large. She told herself that it was cruel of him to treat her as he did; but what could she do? And then she shivered as she thought of stolen meetings by night—meetings which should take place no more—while she wept bitterly as she hurried through the streets thinking of the misery of her lot.

She had no veil to her shabby bonnet, and it was only at last by a strong effort that she forced back the tears; for she felt that people were staring hard at her as she passed. But it was no unusual thing for people to look hard at Lucy Grey, while there was variety in those glances; there were, from women, the glance of envy, the look of sisterly admiration, and that bordering upon motherly love; and there were the hard stare from puppydom, the snobbish ogle, looks of love and respect, every glance that could dart from human eye; but the poor girl hurried on as in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but bent upon the object of her journey. It was nothing to her that behind at a few yards’ distance came Mr William Jarker, favouring everyone with a fierce scowl in return for the glances bestowed upon her, as he tracked her with the pertinacity of a bloodhound, turning when she turned, crossing when she crossed. Once only on her way back did Lucy tremble, when a fiercely-bearded, middle-aged dandy half stopped in front of her, so that she was compelled to turn a little out of her path, as with a heightened colour her eyes sunk before the fellow’s insulting stare. But she did not hear his words, as, fervently wishing old Matt were by her side, she hurried on.

It sometimes happens, though, that those who are working for their own devices do us many a good turn; and it was so here, for as the studiously-dressed and bejewelled dandy turned and followed the fair girl, he suddenly became aware of a rough shoulder forcing him aside, when turning angrily, with umbrella raised to strike, he gazed full into the heavy, bull-dog countenance of Mr Jarker, whose white teeth gleamed beneath his flattened nose as though he were preparing to fasten on his victim.

The next moment the lemon-gloved hands were covering chain and pin, and the heavy swell of the London current subsided slowly and disappeared, leaving Lucy unmolested as she hurried on, followed still closely by her self-constituted bodyguard, of whoso presence she was ignorant; while, five minutes after, he made a side-bound into a doorway, where he stood peering round the post and smiling like some hideous satyr of old, as Lucy encountered Agnes Hardon, and stopped in the quiet street where they then were.

The sight must have been very gratifying to Mr Jarker, for he stood leering, and rubbing his soft, whitish hands, pausing every now and then to have a good gnaw at the nails, already nearly worn down to the quick; and then stepping lightly from his concealment, he passed close behind Agnes as she was whispering:

“God bless you! Don’t stay talking to me; go now. I’ll get it away directly he will let me. I have been five times already; but he was either there, or some one of his companions waiting about.”

Mr Jarker gave a short, husky, forced cough as he passed, when, turning hastily, fear and anger seemed to combine in Agnes Hardon’s face, as she caught Lucy’s hands in her own, interposing herself, as if for protection, till Mr Jarker had disappeared, when she hurried her away by another route, and hastily took her leave. But Lucy did not see her troubled, anxious face following at a short distance, and keeping her in sight till she reached the end of the court in time to encounter Mr Sterne, who saw almost at one glance Lucy, with Jarker standing aside to let her pass as he bestowed upon her a familiar smile and nod, and Agnes Hardon some fifty yards beyond, turning hastily and hurrying off; but her he followed angrily, and with a suffocating sensation at his breast, as if he were, knight-errant like, about to attack one of the evil genii who shadowed the life of her he loved. Fifty yards in advance, though, was Agnes, when he commenced following her steps, till a crowd around that common object of our streets, a fallen horse intercepted his view; and, when he had passed the throng, the figure he sought had disappeared.

“O, this weary, weary deceit!” sobbed Lucy, throwing herself on her knees by her bedside and weeping bitterly. Then, sighing, she rose, folded her mantle, and bathed her eyes before going to the sitting-room, where in a few more minutes her sewing-machine was rapidly beating until Septimus came and, with one loving hand laid across her red eyes, took away the candle.

Volume Three—Chapter Five.

Matt’s Discovery.

“Hold hard here!” cried a voice from a cab-window; and the driver of as jangling a conveyance as ever rattled over London stones drew up at the corner of Carey-street, Chancery-lane.

“I’ll get out here,” cried the voice; and very slowly, and with the aid of a stick, old Matt extricated himself from amongst the straw, a part of which he managed to drag out into the road.

The next minute the cabman was paid and had driven off. The boy who, with a basket slung across his back, had stopped to witness the disembarkation, and cut his popular song in half the while, resumed the refrain and went on along the Lane; while, with a smile on his pale face, old Matt slowly made his way down Carey-street, stopping to rest at the first lamp-post.

“Here I am,” he said; “King Space come back to my dominions. I wasn’t going to ride and lose the pleasure of seeing it all. Thank God there’s no whitewash here, and everything’s just as I left it; things looking as if they hadn’t stirred a peg; and I don’t suppose they have, if they haven’t been costs, which certainly do grow and flourish well here. Lord, sir, how beautiful and smoky and natural everything looks once more! There’s Hardon’s old printing-office—ah, to be sure! ‘Grimp, Deeds copied.’ That’s the trade to flourish here. Now then, sir, good-morning! Let’s get on a bit farther.”

According to his old custom, and heedless now of its being broad daylight, Matt made his way slowly to the next post, making his crippled state an excuse now for stopping, though there was hardly a soul to be seen in Carey-street, and those who passed were too intent upon their own affairs to notice him.

“Slow work, sir,” said Matt, stopping again, “glad to see you, though, once more. Thought at one time, if ever I did it would have been upon a cork-leg, sir; for I couldn’t have stood a wooden peg, sir, anyhow; a cork-leg all springs and watchwork, like old Tim Christy’s, as used to squeak with every step he took, just as if, being of cork, someone was trying to draw it; and he never oiled that leg, for fear it should go too easy. But there, I’m all right again,” he continued, taking a pinch of snuff, “and I call this real enjoyment, sir—real enjoyment. Only wait till I’ve put him all right upon that point, and I’ll have a bit of dissipation. Let’s see: the Vice-chancellor will be sitting like a great god, listening to the prayers of the petitioners in Chancery. I’ll have an hour there, sir, and then take a sniff of the ink in one of the old offices; and confound it all, sir, I wish you could join me! I’ll have half-a-pint of porter in Fetter-lane. I’m in for a regular round of dissipation, I am, just to make up for all this being shut up.”

On again went the old man, rather short of breath, till he was well in sight of the hospital at the end of the street; when, raising his eyes just as he was about to stop, he caught sight of a pale, weary face at one of the windows, and shuddered and turned away; but the next moment he had stopped and turned, and was waving a hand to the patient gazing from his prison-window.

“God bless you, mate!” said Matt aloud, “and may you soon be out of it!” And then there was a reply waved to his salute, and the old man turned down the courts to the left, and soon stood in Bennett’s-rents.

“What, Matt!” cried Septimus Hardon, hurrying to open the door as he heard his slow step upon the stairs; while Lucy took the old man’s other hand and helped him to a seat.

“What’s left of me, sir—what’s left,” said the old man cheerily; “and here I am right and clear-headed, and I did see it all, sir: and I’ve recollected it, and got it all put down here, so as you can read it, and safe in my head too. It wasn’t fancy, it was all right; and I did see it, as I told you, in what must have been the old doctor’s books.”

“But where? when?” cried Septimus eagerly.

“And there was the name—‘Mrs Hardon, medicine and attendance, so much;’ but of course I thought nothing of it then.”

“But,” cried Septimus, as he hooked a finger in a button-hole of the old man’s coat, “where was it?”

“Gently, sir, gently,” said Matt, unhooking the finger; “mind what you’re after: stuff’s tender. But there: you’ll fit me out with a new suit when you’re all right—won’t you, sir, eh?”

“A dozen, Matt, a dozen!” cried Septimus eagerly.

“And Miss Lucy here’s to have as full a compassed pianner as can be got, without having one as would burst and break all the strings—eh, miss, eh?”

Lucy smiled sadly.

“But where did you see it, Matt—where was it?” exclaimed Septimus, inking his face in his excitement, and totally destroying his last hour’s work.

“Why, sir, no farther off than at my lodgings,” cried Matt triumphantly. “I did mean to be of use to you if I could, and I’ve lived to do it, sir, and I’m thankful; but come along, sir—come along. I’m weak and poorly yet, and there seems to be a deal of water collected in my system—a sort of dropsy, you know; and it all flies to my eyes on the least provocation, and comes dripping out like that, just as if I was a great gal, and cried, d’ye see?”

There was a tear in Septimus Hardon’s eye as he warmly wrung the old man’s hand, and ten minutes after they were standing in Lower Series—place, with Matt smiling grimly at a freshly-painted set of skeleton old bone letters upon a glossy-black board, announcing “Isaac Gross, Dealer in Marine-stores;” but that was the only alteration visible, for Isaac and the stout lady occupied the same places as of yore, and were at that very moment engaged in an affectionate, smiling game of bo-peep.

“Might have waited for me to dance at the wedding,” muttered Matt.

But there had been very little dancing at the said wedding; while the trip necessary upon such occasions was one made to the Rye House, where Isaac’s attention was principally taken up by the jack-boot shown amongst the curiosities—a boot which filled his imagination for days after, as he sighed and thought of the evanescent nature of his own manufacture.

The greeting was warm on both sides, Isaac smiling at a quicker rate than had ever before been known. But the visitors meant business, and Matt exclaimed:

“Now, Ike, we want to go over the waste-paper.”

Matt was outside as he spoke, and then Mrs Gross, whose head had been stretched out to listen, found that what had been her property was in question, so she cried, “Stop!” and waddled from her seat to where Matt stood, seized him by the arm, and waddled him into Isaac’s workshop, from whence she waddled him into the back-parlour, where his bed, now the only one in the room, was neatly made up, and the place somewhat tidier than of yore, though the waste-paper heap was bigger than ever.

“Now,” said Mrs Gross, with a very fat smile and a knowing twinkle of her eye as she sank her voice to a whisper, “Is it deeds?” and then she looked at Isaac as if for approbation, that gentleman having followed them into the room and being engaged in vain endeavours to thrust a very large finger into his very small pipe-bowl.

“Who married the kitchen-stuff?” shouted a small voice at the door, and Mrs Gross angrily waddled out in pursuit, to the great delight of half a score of the small inhabitants of Serle’s-place, one of whom danced a defiant pas seul in a tray of rusty keys as he fled, laughing the while at the fat threatening hand held up. But Isaac stirred not, from having been accustomed to the gibes of the juveniles of the place, and his skin being too thick for such banderillos as “Waxy,” “Welty,” or “Strap-oil,” to penetrate, so he merely stood wiping his nose upon his leather apron till his partner returned.

“Is it deeds?” whispered Mrs Gross again, and then in a parenthesis, “Drat them boys!”

“No,” said Matt gruffly, “it ain’t.”

“Then it’s bank-bills,” said the lady mysteriously, as she slily winked at everyone in turn, her husband smiling at her acute business perceptions.

“No, nor it ain’t them neither,” said Matt.

“Then it’s a will,” said Mrs Gross in a disappointed tone; “and there ain’t a scrap of that sort in the place, for I sold out last week.”

“’Tain’t a will, I tell you,” growled Matt.

“Then it’s dockymens,” said Mrs Gross triumphantly, and she nudged Matt in the side.

“No it ain’t; nor receipts, nor letters, nor nothing of the kind. If you must know, it’s them old doctor’s books; that’s what it is. Now, where are they?”

But Mrs Gross, though she had not the slightest idea as to what doctor’s books were meant, was not yet satisfied, but cried:

“Halves!”

“What’s halves?” said Matt.

“Why, we goes halves in what turns up,” said Mrs Gross, who had a famous eye for business, though she would keep dimming its...

Some lines missing here from the scans.

“Gross!” cried a sepulchral voice, which made Septimus start, till he found that it had proceeded from Mr Isaac himself, though his face did not betray that he had spoken.

“Gross, then,” growled Matt. “Now look here,” he continued; “it’s nothing but an old entry as I once saw in some doctor’s books on your counter here, and we want to see it; for I hadn’t sense then to know it was any good; but if we find it, and it’s what we want, my guv’nor here will stand a sovereign, I dessay.”

“Put it down on paper, then,” said Isaac, “and make him sign;” to the great admiration of his partner, who patted him upon the back for his display of business ability; and then, before a paper was touched, Septimus Hardon, greatly to Matt’s disgust, signed a promissory and conditional note for the amount named.

“Ikey,” growled Matt, “I didn’t think you had been such a Jew. If you haven’t let my rooms, you can get yourself a fresh tenant.”

But Isaac only smiled, and the task commenced—no light one—of turning over the huge stack of waste-paper piled up before them. Dust, dirt, and mildew; brief-paper, copying-paper, newspaper, old books, old magazines and pamphlets, account-books with covers and account-books without; paper in every phase; while eagerly was everything in the shape of an account-book seized upon, and the search continued until, faint and weary, they had gone through the whole heap, when with a despairing, doleful look Septimus gazed upon Matt.

“I’ll take my Bible oath it was in a book I saw laid upon that heap. Now then, where’s some more?” and the old man said it feebly, as if nearly exhausted.

“No more anywheres,” said Mrs Gross assuringly, as she smoothed her husband’s oily hair.

“Sure?” cried Matt.

Mrs Gross nodded, and retied the ribbon which confined her husband’s locks.

“Where is it, then?” cried Matt.

“Where is it?” repeated Mrs Gross. “Why, if it ain’t here, in this heap, it’s everywheres. It’s sold, and burnt, and wrapped round ’bacca, and butter, and all sorts.”

“Hadn’t we better go, Matt?” whispered Septimus, dreamily washing his hands together after his dry custom.

“S’pose we had,” muttered Matt. “Just, too, sir, as I’d made so sure as it was all coming right, and for the second time, too. Never mind, sir, it’ll all come right yet. Third time never fails. What do you say to hunting up the Miss Thingumy at Finsbury, and hearing what she’s got to say?—plenty, depend upon it. News, perhaps, and it can’t do no harm.”

But Septimus Hardon was in a weary, absent fit, and went away muttering homewards, as, worn-out and weak, Matt sat down upon the waste-paper ruins of the palace he had built in his own mind, and grimly listened to the congratulations of his friends upon his return.

Volume Three—Chapter Six.

Weakness and Strength.

For a good hour together Mr Jarker would rest in a broken-bottomed chair, smoking a short black pipe, his hands supporting his heavy chin, and his elbows making pits in his knees, as, like some hideous old cathedral gargoyle, he sat gazing fixedly at the little wondering face of the child. From time to time he reversed his position to re-refresh himself with a draught of his favourite beverage—gin and beer, a beverage which always produced a loud smack from his thick negro lips. If there was no fascination in the child’s face for Bill Jarker, there was most certainly fascination in the ruffian’s face for the child; and unconsciously imitating his attitude, it would rest its dimply plump cheeks upon its tiny fists, and gaze again wonderingly, without a thought of moving, till the lids slowly sank over the violet eyes, and the little golden-haired, soft, lovable head sank sideways, with all those prettiest of pretty motions seen in one of the most beautiful sights in nature—a child dropping off into its simple trusting sleep of innocence; but soon it would start into wakefulness again, with a frightened air, and its little face drawn and ready to cry; but a glance at the hideous face before it subdued the disposition, and once more the same long, weary gaze commenced.

This took place day after day, and a stranger seeing it might have fancied that in this case innocence was exercising its power over guilt; but one who knew Mr Jarker well would have arrived at the right idea, namely, that this gentleman was making his plans. A pipe or two of tobacco, a pint of beer strengthened with gin, and a long stare at the face of his wife when living, a cat, a dog, or of late the child, had been the preliminaries of more than one desperate burglary in a country place somewhere within a circle of fifty miles’ radius, taking Saint Paul’s as the centre. Bill’s confrères in the bird-catching profession contented themselves with trips countryward to the extent of eight or ten miles; but, though on the whole Bill and his two or three companions caught fewer birds, he never let distance interfere with his pursuits, and used to boast that the birds he netted were of a rarer kind. Bill would travel third-class almost any distance to find good pitches for his nets; and even then, perhaps, after a three or four days’ trip, and returning with hardly a bird, he seemed to be so infatuated with the place and its prospects, that he would gather together his two or three intimates, and go down again, travelling slowly by road, setting off too in such a hurry, in a miserable cart drawn by a wretched-looking hack, that friends and self would entirely forget nets and call-birds, when they would console themselves with the remark that they might take a few nightingales.

So that Mr Jarker was not undergoing a softening process as he sat staring at the child, for he was really making his plans; and this time these plans had nothing to do with either birds or nocturnal visits. There was something particular in Mr Jarker’s head, or else he would not have burdened himself with the child for a single day; while he had carefully retained it in his custody now for many weeks; and the ruffian’s ideas must have been of a somewhat strange character, for now and then he would shake his head at the drowsy child, and say:

“Yes, my little chickin’, you do for a bait.”

So of late, apparently for the sake of the child, Mr Jarker had suffered the bellows; and, in consideration of a small sum weekly, Mrs Sims had sniffed about the room, and, to use her own expressive words, “done for him.” But now, probably from too much spiritual exercise, Mrs Sims was ill, and no one dared go near the ruffian’s room but Lucy, whose heart bled for the little thing. Left still for hours together alone in the dreary room, sometimes but half fed, afraid to do more than whimper softly, her sole amusement was to press her little face against the closed window, and watch until she could catch a glimpse of her neighbour, when the tiny hands would be clapped with glee. The neighbours said it was a shame; but they had their own affairs to attend to, and said no more. While, as might be expected, Lucy seized every opportunity of tending the child most lovingly; watching for Jarker’s absence, and then hurrying up and spending perhaps an hour in the miserable attic.

“She must be ill,” Lucy would think, “or something is wrong; for surely it was fancy on her part that he should wish to retain the child;” and, though anxious that it should be better tended, she looked forward with dread to the time when it should be taken away; while, as anxiously she watched for a visit from Agnes. Night after night the candle burned in her window, as she worked on at some exercise; but Agnes Hardon came not, telling her weary heart that it was for Lucy’s good.

Sometimes Jarker would omit to turn the key he always left in his door, as if to provoke inquiry into his affairs, and to show the guilelessness of his life; and then, after waiting until his footstep became inaudible, the child would steal softly down step by step, fleeing back if she heard a door open or a foot upon the stairs, but only to persevere till, unobserved, she reached the entrance, when, watching till the attention of the children of the court was directed elsewhere, she would dart across the pavement, enter the opposite house, creep up to the first-floor, and then crouch down by the step which led into the front-room, and peer beneath the door, through the opening made by the long hard wear of feet for a century and a half-watching, perhaps for a couple of hours, the bright guiding spirit of the sewing-machine. But at last Lucy would catch sight of the two round bright eyes, peering beneath the door; and to her mother’s great annoyance at one time, and supreme satisfaction upon another, she would fetch in the child, when according to Mrs Hardon’s mood she would act; for if the invalid was fretful and weary, the little thing would be taken up to Jean, where she would stay willingly amongst the birds, as the cripple eagerly tried to be of service to his beautiful neighbour. But there were difficulties here, for Jean could only render this aid when ma mère was absent, though this was more frequently now since Bijou had learned to stand upon his head, and so brought in more remuneration, without taking into consideration his later accomplishment of climbing two chairs, rail by rail, forefeet upon one, hindfeet upon another, and then smoking a tobacco-less pipe in triumph upon the summit, as he spanned the distance between the two chairs, and turned himself into a canine arch. But Bijou doubtless did not enjoy his pipe for remembering how that he was bête, and for thinking of the whip, and the rapping his poor legs received before he was able to obey his mistress’s commands—that is if dogs can think.

There seemed to be a tacit understanding between ma mère and Lucy; an acknowledged dislike upon the old woman’s part, which made the latter carefully avoid her, shrinking back into the room if she heard her footstep, so as not to encounter the quiet bitter smile and sneering gaze of the old woman, while ma mère reviled Jean angrily, calling him nurse-girl, bonne, when by chance she learned of his past occupation. But Jean cared not, so long as there was something that should bring Lucy to his attic, where he could feast greedily upon her bright face and graceful form; and, could he have gone about, he would have followed her like a dog.

Jean’s lark sang more loudly than ever, and Lucy’s eyes had brightened as she told the cripple again and again how she loved its sweet notes; and, watching her press her lips once to the cage-wires, inviting the speckled bird to take a seed from the rosy prison, Jean’s eyes dimmed as he gazed at her with a reverence approaching adoration. Visitor after visitor came to that attic, and went, buying and selling, and the little prisoners were constantly being changed; but the lark was there still, though more than once of late Jean had pressed its acceptance upon Lucy Grey; but with a sweet smile she had thanked him, begging that he would keep it for her sake; and he kept it, in spite of many an angry word from ma mère when some advantageous offer had been made by a visitor; and it still whistled from its perch in the window.

“I will sell the bird myself; it is waste, it is pity, when we are so poor,” ma mère would exclaim; and then Jean would turn upon her a peculiar soft, sweet smile, and whisper, “No, ma mère, you will not sell my bird, because I love it;” when passionately the old woman would now scold, now fondle the cripple, as she hung over the back of his chair.

One evening when the moon hung high in air, waiting the fading of day before shedding her pale light, Jean sat in his usual place in the window, dreaming of scenes of which he had read, and thinking himself in some sweet woodland home, forgetting the presence of squalor and misery, and even of the cages, as he listened to the twittering of the many birds hung around his head. There was a brightness in his eye and a smile upon his lip, for he was gazing across the court at just such a scene as once almost spellbound the curate. Merrily romping with the child, he could see Lucy in Jarker’s room, flitting backwards and forwards past the open window. The child’s happy laugh could be heard mingled with its shouts of pleasure, for the pent-up joyousness of its little nature was now having free vent.

All at once Jean’s look of quiet enjoyment changed to one of unutterable rage and despair; the lips, but now apart in a soft smile, were drawn, as if by some fearful pain, his teeth were clenched, and his eyes wild and dilated. He tried to rise, but his helplessness was such that he sank back in his chair panting; but, raising his crutch, he struck savagely on the casement, shivering two or three of the little panes. He tried again and again to get up, and inarticulate sounds came from his lips. It was pitiful to gaze upon the struggle between the strong mind and the weak body, which would not obey his will as he tried again to rise; till, with a savage, guttural cry, more like that of some disappointed beast of prey than a human being, he threw himself towards the open window, as in his efforts his chair was overturned and he fell upon the floor, where he lay agonisingly writhing in his impotence, as he absolutely foamed at the mouth.

Just then the door behind him opened, and, with a book beneath his arm, Mr Sterne entered the room; when seeing, as he thought, the cripple in a fit, he sprang forward and raised him in his arms to place him in a chair, at the same time running over in his own mind what would be the best course of action. But as he gazed in the poor fellow’s dilated eyes, and saw their look of unutterable despair, one of Jean’s hands was fiercely clutching his shoulder, and the other was pointing and waving frantically towards the open window.

The next instant, as if some strange suspicion had flashed upon his mind, the curate was gazing across the court, to utter almost the counterpart of the cry that had issued from the throat of Jean, as he caught sight of Lucy, frightened and horror-stricken, backing towards the room door, and Jarker, evidently half-mad with drink, holding her tightly by one arm; for he had returned unexpectedly, and taking advantage of the girl’s preoccupation, had stolen softly into the room and closed the door.

Arthur Sterne saw this at one glance, and his face turned pale as ashes with the thoughts that this hasty look engendered. The next moment he had half-climbed from the window and stood holding by one hand, measuring the distance across the court, as he stooped, lithe and elastic, ready for the bound; but reason told him that it was utter madness to attempt so wild a leap—a leap certainly death for himself, and probably worse than death for her he sought to save; and dashing back into the room he tore down the staircase.

Recovering somewhat, Jean now let himself slide down upon the floor, and, panting heavily, began to walk painfully across the room; for a moment he looked at the window, but the next he was making for the door, and then lowering himself from stair to stair. But before he was down the first flight, there was rescue at hand for Lucy. Bounding up the frail old staircase of the opposite house, Arthur Sterne dashed frantically on, so that at every leap the woodwork cracked and trembled as if ready to give way. The height never seemed so great before, as landing after landing was passed, till he reached the last, to launch himself against the frail door, which, driven from its hinges, fell with a crash; and the next moment, dropping like some inert mass from the blow which fell upon his face, Jarker made the old place quiver beneath his weight. And there he lay, stupid and helpless from the sudden shock; the effect of the blow being apparently enough to destroy life, for the ruffian did not move.

Hardly breathing, and uttering no sound, the child crouched fearfully in a corner; while Lucy, trembling and half-fainting, clung to the curate, as sob after sob burst from her breast; and at last, as if stricken by death, she sank back pale and inanimate upon his supporting arm.

But there were no looks of love in Arthur Sterne’s face; for, with brow knit, nostrils distended, and every vein in his face swollen and knotted, he stood with his heel crushed down upon Jarker’s bull-throat, no mean incarnation of vengeance. Soon, though, the breath he had drawn with difficulty as he stood there holding the fainting girl to his throbbing heart, came more lightly, the expression of rage fled from his features, and as he gazed tenderly upon the pale face so near his own he pressed his lips reverently upon her forehead.

“Lucy, my poor dove,” he whispered, “will you not give me the right to protect you, and take you from this place?”—“Our beauty, some of us,” seemed sighed at his ear.

“A lie, a base lie!” he muttered fiercely; though even then a change came over his face, the veins swelled once more in his forehead, and an agony of strange thoughts passed through his breast. And now, pale and anxious, two or three of the women lodgers came trembling to the door, amongst whom was Mrs Sims, ready to take possession of the child, as, hurriedly passing through the wondering group, the curate bore his light burden to her home.

Volume Three—Chapter Seven.

A Meeting and its Result.

It was late before Arthur Sterne left Bennett’s-rents that night. Septimus Hardon had been terribly excited—talking long and wildly of his poverty being the cause of the insult offered to his child. He had walked hurriedly up and down the room, gesticulating and threatening the scoundrel who had so repaid Lucy’s kindness; and again and again it was upon the curate’s lips to speak of the little one, and of Lucy’s strange intimacy with its mother; but his spirit revolted from the task. In another case he would have spoken instantly; but here duty seemed to move in fetters that he could not break. In all concerning the poor girl he seemed bound to preserve silence till such time as some explanation should be given, and through all he had been in constant dread lest he should give her pain.

“I must prosecute the villain!” exclaimed Septimus.

“But the pain—the exposure—your child?” said the curate.

“What! would you have him go unpunished?” exclaimed Septimus.

“I would say ‘No!’ directly,” replied the curate; “but I cannot help thinking of the painful scene in court, the public examination, and the cross-examination by the prisoner’s counsel; and these men can always among themselves manage to get some able person to undertake their cause. It would be a most painful position in which to place your child. Her actions would be distorted to suit a purpose; and such a scene—”

Mr Sterne’s speech dwindled off, and became inaudible; for he felt that he had spoken unadvisedly, and a strange chill came over him as he thought, in the event of the affair being in court, what hold the opposing counsel could take of certain acts in Lucy’s life; for, let them he ever so innocent, the light in which they would place her would be of the most painful character; and his lips were rather white as he said, “Sleep on it, Mr Hardon, sleep on it.”

“I will,” said Septimus proudly. “We are poor, Mr Sterne; but there is no act in my dear child’s life that will not bear the light of day.”

“Doubtless, doubtless,” replied the curate in a low tone; “but, believe me, my advice is given with the best of wishes and intentions, Mr Hardon. Have I not always tried to be a friend? And if there was somewhat of selfishness in my advances, I feel no shame in owning to you that I am moved by a feeling of more than esteem for Miss Grey; to whom any proceedings would, I am sure, be as painful as to myself.”

Septimus Hardon started, for this was as sudden as unexpected. Such a thought had never entered his breast, and he gazed wonderingly at the calm, pale face before him; as in the silence which ensued they both sat listening to the painful, low sob which came now and again from the next room, where, forgetful of her own infirmities, Mrs Hardon had been trying to soothe the agitated girl.

And then, hour after hour, Septimus sat talking with Mr Sterne—for the first time now giving himself up entirely to his advice, and promising to give up all thought of prosecution, while he sought at once for some more suitable home for his wife and child, though, as he thought of his narrow, precarious income, he made the latter promise with a sigh. He talked long and earnestly, too, about his own affairs, being ready now to take the counsel that Mr Sterne so freely offered; and when, with a lighter heart, the curate rose to leave, Septimus shook hands, with a puzzled expression upon his face, as if he hardly believed in the events of the past evening.

Upon slowly descending and reaching the door, Mr Sterne drew back, asking himself whether he should be content, or seize the opportunity that now offered for him to know that of which it was evident, from his language, Septimus Hardon was still ignorant. The desire was strong to know more, and he yielded to it; for there before him, standing in the open court, and gazing anxiously up at the lighted window, was the woman who had caused him so much uneasiness; but neither he nor the woman saw that in the shade of the opposite doorway a villainous pair of eyes were on the watch.

Again and again he had encountered this woman since he had determined to question her—upon the bridge at early dawn; by night, in the crowded streets, dressed in the extreme of fashion; shabbily dressed by day; but she always fled, and contrived to elude him. Who was she? What was she? How came she intimate with Lucy? Was it merely for the child’s sake? Then why Lucy’s dread?

The opportunity was here, he told himself, and he would know; and then, as he formed the determination, he stepped quickly out; but no sooner did Agnes Hardon catch sight of the curate’s pale, stern face by the sickly flicker of the one lamp than she turned and fled, while, without pausing to think, the curate closed the door and pursued her.

A dark, gusty time, late, for two had struck but a minute before by church after church—some sending their booming announcement clearly out upon the night air, others discordantly, and jangling with the bells of others. Turning towards the end of the court, Agnes ran swiftly, her dress rustling, and fashionable boots pattering upon the pavement; but her pursuer was quick of foot, and followed her along the end row, through Harker’s-alley, Ray’s-court, along one labyrinth and down another of the old district, now falling beneath the contractor’s pick, till they had nearly returned to the point from whence they started. But flight was of no avail, and soon Arthur Sterne overtook the panting woman, himself breathless, and, heedless of her fierce looks, caught her by the wrist.

“Come with me,” he said sternly, as he drew her towards the entrance of the dark court where they stood.

“Why, why?” she exclaimed passionately, struggling with him the while. “Why do you stop me? Why do you pursue me—you, too, a clergyman?”

The answer to the taunt was a cold look, which Agnes Hardon saw and felt; for the next moment she was weeping passionately. “Why do you track and follow me, sir?” she exclaimed through her tears. “Let me go; you hurt my arm!”

“Will you stand and answer my questions, then?” said the curate, as they now stood at the entrance of the court—a dark, gloomy archway, with a doorway here and there.

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Agnes wearily, “if you will be quick; but there, I know what you would say, and it is of no use; I am past all that!”

“Past all what?” cried the curate sternly.

“Hope of better things,” said the woman with so weary and despondent a wail, that her hearer shuddered.

“Hush!” he said; “you speak rashly, and without thinking;” and releasing her wrist, he laid his hand gently upon her arm. “Listen,” he said; “you have your woman’s feelings yet!”

“No,” she replied hastily, “all—all gone; driven out of me—dead. Let me go, please; it’s late, sir. I am a wretch, and it is useless to talk.”

“But why do you pursue that young girl?” he said, pointing across the street to where Bennett’s-rents debouched. “Would you tempt her to be your companion?”

“No, no, no; my God, no!” half-shrieked Agnes, as she caught at his hands; “don’t think that, sir.”

“Then you have some womanly feeling left,” said Mr Sterne.

“Towards her, perhaps, yes.”

“And your child?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” wailed Agnes; “but don’t torture me. What do you know?—what do you wish me to do?—why do you follow me?”

“What is your name?” said the curate sternly; “and how came you to know her?” and he pointed again towards Bennett’s-rents.

“Don’t ask me, I cannot tell you,” sobbed Agnes.

“But you bring misery on her and on her home. You have some hold upon her?”

“No, no, no,” sobbed Agnes hysterically; “none, none; but she knows who I am, and pities me and my poor child. God’s blessing on her!”

“Amen!” muttered the curate under his breath, and his companion sobbed so convulsively that she could not speak, while, as they stood in the dark entry, a policeman came slowly by, flashed the light of his bull’s-eye upon them for an instant, recognised the curate and passed on, and, till he was out of hearing, Agnes Hardon clutched the curate’s arm.

“You are not afraid of the world and it’s opinions,” she said bitterly; “it cannot hurt you. Stay with me and I will tell you all, for I believe you mean me well.”

The curate bowed his head.

“I am miserable, wretched,” she sobbed, “and what can I do? That man in the court has my poor child, and for some reason he will not give it up. I have tried to get it away again and again, even to stealing it, sir—my own little one; but something has always prevented me, and he watches me till, hardened as I am, I am afraid of him, for he comes over my spirit like the shadow of some great horror about to crush me. I love my child, my pure little angel, for—O sir, have pity on me, have pity!—I am its mother, and what else have I here to cling to? Can you not think how I must love it though I left it with that poor dead woman? But she had a mother’s heart, and was kind to it always. I could see it in my darling’s blue eyes even when it racked my heart; but I was glad, though it would not come to me, and called her mother. I was happy then, for did not she—she you say I injure—watch over it for me, and tell me of its bright eyes and sunny hair and winning ways, while, when I have listened to her, the tears have come gently to quench the fire in my brain, and I could think of home and the past, while she—she who loves my little one—lets me weep upon her breast, and I forget for a while that I am lost, lost, lost for ever!”

“Lost, lost, lost for ever!” She uttered these words so hopelessly, with such a wail of agony, that they seemed to echo along the archway, and to float off upon the night breeze, rising and falling, an utterance never to fade away, but to go on for ever and ever while this world lasts; to smite upon the sleeping ears of the cruel, the dissolute, and the profligate; to awaken here, perhaps, one sorrowful thought for wrong done, one thought of repentance; there, a desire to pause, ere it be too late, on the brink of some iniquity that should break a trusting woman’s heart.

Tenderly, and with such a strange feeling of compassion in his heart as might have pervaded that of his Master whose words he taught, Arthur Sterne took the weeping woman’s hands in his, as, sobbing more bitterly than ever, she sank upon her knees on the cold stones at his feet, weeping as though her heart would break; nay, as if through the torn walls of that broken citadel the flood of tears went seething and hissing, the ruins yet smouldering and burning with the fire of the fatal passion that had been their fall.

“What shall I do, sir?” she cried at length, wearily looking up in the face that bent over her. “I would take my little one away and go near the place no more, for I have been seldom lately, not liking that he should see me with her, for he followed us once, and I did not like it. I would have told her not to go near my child, but there is a woman sometimes there. He will not let me take it away. But tell me what to do, sir,” she said wearily, “and I will do it.”

“What!” she cried, starting up, “what!” she half-shrieked, as he related to her the incident of the past night; “and this through me? Am I to bring misery everywhere? O God, O God!” she cried, “that my weakness, my sin, should be ever growing and bringing its misery upon others! But stop, sir; listen,” she exclaimed huskily, as she clung to his arm; “what shall we do? If I could have seen this, sir, I’d have died sooner than it should have happened; believe me, I would.”

The curate bent his head once more, as they stood facing the street, and said, in low, impressive tones, “I do believe you;” but he took no heed to a light, stealthy pace in the alley behind.

“What shall I do, sir?” cried Agnes eagerly.

“Take the child away at once,” replied Mr Sterne, “and leave this life. But will you?”

“If the gates of heaven were opened, sir, and One said, ‘Come in, poor sinner, and rest,’ should I go?”

The stealthy step came nearer, but was unnoticed.

“Now tell me your name, and how came the intimacy of which I complain,” said Mr Sterne.

“I—I knew the family; I knew Lucy—Miss Grey—before her father—and—pray, pray ask me no more,” gasped Agnes appealingly. “I will do all you wish, sir. Help me to get my child, and I will go anywhere you may tell me; but don’t ask me that, sir.”