For troubles now came thickly crowding on Septimus Hardon’s horizon. His wife’s health failed fast, and the means were wanting to procure her the necessary comforts. But there is always light behind the darkest cloud; and now it was that Lucy, young in years, but a woman in self-reliance, proved a stay to the family. Ever busily plying her needle, ever cheerful, she was a ray of sunshine in their sad home, shedding her brightness in the darkest hours. And though Septimus Hardon querulously complained of his standing so friendless in the world, there was another who watched anxiously the failing fortunes of the family, and was always ready with counsel and aid – the Reverend Arthur Sterne, who became more constant in his visits as the affairs of Septimus grew darker. Old Matt and he, too, often met, but somehow not without feelings of distrust on either side – distrust perhaps excusable on the side of the clergyman; for the ways of Matthew Space shed no softening lustre upon his outer man.
One day old Matt went into Carey-street to find the broker in possession; for Septimus was far behind with his heavy rent, and the landlord was alarmed at seeing his tenant’s worldly possessions shrinking at so rapid a rate; while, when the old man made his way into the sitting-room, he found weary-looking Septimus waiting with aching heart for a reply to the appealing letter he had sent to his father.
Old Matt went again, day after day, asking himself how he could be such an old idiot as to care for other people’s affairs to the neglect of his own; but there was always the same weary shake of the head, and the same answer – “No letter, Matt.”
At last there was a cart at the door, and Septimus Hardon, roused up into something like energy for the time being, busily helped old Matt to remove the remnants of his furniture to the rooms the old man had secured for him in that salubrious court, Bennett’s-rents.
“’Tain’t the nicest of spots,” old Matt had owned; “but then look at the convenience; and for what you are going to do, sir, you must be right on the spot; for though law’s very slow work for them as goes into it, it’s very quick, sharp work for them as does the copying.”
That evening Septimus Hardon looked dolefully round the front room of the two the old man had secured for him; then he glanced at his wife, who tried to smile; at Lucy, busily arranging; and lastly at old Matt, who looked very cheerful and happy as he helped Lucy in her arrangements, and was now lustily polishing a table that did not require it with a duster.
“Good luck to you, sir, don’t look like that; why, you’re fetching the tears into Miss Lucy’s eyes – as is quite bright enough without,” muttered Matt to himself. “Don’t be down, sir, the wheel’s always going round – bottom spokes to-day, top spokes to-morrow; and not the best place neither, for folks often knocks their heads through going too high. This ain’t nothing, bless you; this is riches, this is – cheerful prospect of ten foot in front; pigeons on the roof; birds a-singing upstairs; children a-rollicking in the court; orgin three times a-day; writers popping in and out at the corner this side, public at the corner on t’other – brown stout threepence a pot in your own jugs; side-view almost into Carey-street, through the alley. Why, you’re well off here, sir; and I’ve known the time when a ha’porth o’ snuff and a recess in one of the bridges has been board and lodging to me; and – Servant, sir. – Anything more I can do for you to-day, Mr Hardon? If not, I’ll go, sir,” said the old man, suddenly becoming very distant and respectful; for a new-comer appeared upon the scene in the shape of Mr Sterne; when, after a very stiff bow all round, old Matt departed, stumbling more than once as he descended the worn stairs.
Matthew Space’s cheerfulness was gone as soon as he left the court, and it took him some considerable time to reach his resting-place – a neighbouring public-house; for he was troubled and anxious, and had to stop every now and then to think; but he could not think aloud to his old friends the lamps, on account of its being daylight; though after an hour or two’s sojourn at first one and then another of his places of resort when making his way homewards, he paused frequently and long.
“Now I tell you what it is, sir!” he exclaimed, on stopping at the corner of Carey-street once more, and slapping a favourite post on the shoulder, “things are coming to a pretty pass; here we are sending our thousands to prison and penal servitude for dishonesty, robbery, and petty theft; and out of those thousands no end wanted to be honest, and we would not give them the chance. There are thousands wanting to get an honest living, and we won’t let them. Rogue, sir!” he cried, excitedly slapping the cold iron with such energy that his hand ached, “don’t tell me; you may talk of your charity and benevolence till all’s blue; but I mean to say that, in the eyes of the world, sir, there isn’t a greater rogue than a poor man. Beat him, kick him, turn him out, off with him – a vagabond, what business has he to be poor?”
Old Matt was out of breath, and strode on to another post.
“What business has he to be poor – a villain? What do we want with a Septimus Hardon, legal and general printer, and poor man? ‘Nothing at all,’ says the world, and it won’t go to his shop; ‘see him starve first,’ says the world; ‘we’ll go to the people who don’t want help, who keep their carriages and country-seats; and if the little men fail and become bankrupt, serve ’em right, too, what business had they to aspire? why weren’t they content as shopmen or journeymen? Too many already! Pooh! then let them get out. Let them plod and crawl, or turn agricultural labourers, and earn eight or nine shillings a-week. Won’t they get premiums, sir, for bringing up their families without parish help, eh? And what more can they want in this great and glorious land? Won’t that do? Well, then, let ’em go to the workhouse, where there’s every convenience for letting ’em die off out of the way.’”
The old man crossed the muddy street to another lamp, chuckling to himself the while, when, laying both hands upon the post, he began again: “It’s a strange thing, sir, a wonderful thing, how lonesome a man may be here in this great city of London: he may work till he drops for a living, and not get it; and he may then go and lie down and die, and all that, while nobody has known him or helped him; but when he’s found there’s a fuss in the papers for a few hours, and then – on we go again. We’re all wrong, sir. What’s the use of our spending our hundreds of thousands, sir, in converting a few Indians, or Africans, or Australians, sir, and then holding our meetings, with the Bishop of Somewhere-or-another coming home to hold forth upon the benefits that have followed the missionary enterprise, but saying nothing about the miseries that have followed wherever the white man has set his foot? Very fine, sir; very fine, this civilisation, and town and village and church springing up; but what has become of the Indian? what has become of the Australian? and what will become of the New Zealander? It’s aggrandisement from beginning to end, sir, – dead robbery; call it conquest if you will; but there, it’s all for the extension of our glorious empire. Let’s see, sir,” said Matt, stopping; “I’m getting it into a knot; what was I going to say? How dare we go on so busily cleaning other people’s houses when our own is in a state that we ought as a nation to blush for? Convert savages, benighted heathen! Why, I can take you, sir, where, here in the heart of this Christian city, London, you shall see savages ten times worse than any you shall find in Africa – more cruel, more licentious. There, hang it, sir, if it warn’t for the fear of being eaten, I’d sooner trust myself amongst the blacks ten times over than the whites, hang me if I wouldn’t! I know what you’ll say to me, sir! ‘Go and preach the Gospel to every creature!’ Ah, but oughtn’t we to be fit to do it first? oughtn’t we to look at home first? I say yes, sir, yes; and what we’re doing now, sir, ’s playing the Pharisee and whitening the outside of the sepulchre; and there’s no mistake about it, sir, some parts of this London of ours make a very foul sepulchre indeed.”
Another fifty yards brought Matt to the next post, where he again stopped.
“I’m a leveller, am I, sir? P’r’aps so; but we levellers make the way smooth for those poor folks who are to tramp the road of life in days to come. I’m very sorry