I re-entered the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was dark when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered how my fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the prospect of a grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise, I found, on entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth. I had hardly noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another subject for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was already filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest, and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment’s examination enabled me to recognize in this person my acquaintance, Mr Hunsden. I could not of course be much pleased to see him, considering the manner in which I had parted from him the night before, and as I walked to the hearth, stirred the fire, and said coolly, ‘Good evening,’ my demeanour evinced as little cordiality as I felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had brought him there; and I wondered, also, what motives had induced him to interfere so actively between me and Edward; it was to him, it appeared, that I owed my welcome dismissal; still I could not bring myself to ask him questions, to show any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to explain, he might, but the explanation should be a perfectly voluntary one on his part; I thought he was entering upon it.
‘You owe me a debt of gratitude,’ were his first words.
‘Do I?’ said I; ‘I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind.’
‘Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with the bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say “Thank you!”’
‘Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so famished.’
I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
‘Cold meat!’ exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, ‘what a glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you’ll die of eating too much.’
‘No, Mr Hunsden, I shall not.’ I felt a necessity for contradicting him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and irritated at the continued roughness of his manner.
‘It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered,’ said he.
‘How do you know?’ I demanded. ‘It is like you to give a pragmatical opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the case; I have had no dinner.’
What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied by looking in my face and laughing.
‘Poor thing!’ he whined, after a pause. ‘It has had no dinner, has it? What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth order you to fast by way of punishment, William!’
‘No, Mr Hunsden.’
Fortunately, at this sulky juncture, tea was brought in, and I fell to upon some bread and butter and cold beef directly. Having cleared a plateful, I became so far humanized as to intimate to Mr Hunsden that he need not sit there staring, but might come to the table and do as I did, if he liked.’
‘But I don’t like in the least,’ said he, and therewith he summoned the servant by a fresh pull of the bell-rope, and intimated a desire to have a glass of toast-and-water. ‘And some more coal,’ he added; ‘Mr Crimsworth shall keep a good fire while I stay.’
His orders being executed, he wheeled his chair round to the table, so as to be opposite me.
‘Well,’ he proceeded. ‘You are out of work, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ said I; and not disposed to show the satisfaction I felt on this point, I, yielding to the whim of the moment, took up the subject as though I considered myself aggrieved rather than benefited by what had been done. ‘Yes – thanks to you, I am. Crimsworth turned me off at a minute’s notice, owing to some interference of yours at a public meeting, I understand.’
‘Ah! what! he mentioned that? He observed me signalling the lads, did he? What had he to say about his friend Hunsden – anything sweet?’
‘He called you a treacherous villain.’
‘Oh, he hardly knows me yet! I’m one of those shy people who don’t come out all at once, and he is only just beginning to make my acquaintance, but he’ll find I’ve some good qualities – excellent ones! The Hunsdens were always unrivalled at tracking a rascal; a downright, dishonourable villain is their natural prey – they could not keep off him wherever they met him; you used the word pragmatical just now – that word is the property of our family; it has been applied to us from generation to generation; we have fine noses for abuses; we scent a scoundrel a mile off; we are reformers born, radical reformers; and it was impossible for me to live in the same town with Crimsworth, to come into weekly contact with him, to witness some of his conduct to you (for whom personally I care nothing; I only consider the brutal injustice with which he violated your natural claim to equality) – I say it was impossible for me to be thus situated and not feel the angel or the demon of my race at work within me. I followed my instinct, opposed a tyrant, and broke a chain.’
Now this speech interested me much, both because it brought out Hunsden’s character, and because it explained his motives; it interested me so much that I forgot to reply to it, and sat silent, pondering over a throng of ideas it had suggested.
‘Are you grateful to me?’ he asked, presently.
In fact I was grateful, or almost so, and I believe I half liked him at the moment, notwithstanding his proviso that what he had done was not out of regard for me. But human nature is perverse. Impossible to answer his blunt question in the affirmative, so I disclaimed all tendency to gratitude, and advised him if he expected any reward for his championship, to look for it in a better world, as he was not likely to meet with it here. In reply he termed me ‘a dry-hearted aristocratic scamp’, whereupon I again charged him with having taken the bread out of my mouth.
‘Your bread was dirty, man!’ cried Hunsden – ‘dirty and unwholesome! It came through the hands of a tyrant, for I tell you Crimsworth is a tyrant, – a tyrant to his workpeople, a tyrant to his clerks, and will some day be a tyrant to his wife.’
‘Nonsense! bread is bread, and a salary is a salary. I’ve lost mine, and through your means.’
‘There’s sense in what you say, after all,’ rejoined Hunsden. ‘I must say I am rather agreeably surprised to hear you make so practical an observation as that last. I had imagined now, from my previous observation of your character, that the sentimental delight you would have taken in your newly regained liberty would, for a while at least, have effaced all ideas of forethought and prudence. I think better of you for looking steadily to the needful.’
‘Looking steadily to the needful! How can I do otherwise? I must live, and to live I must have what you call ‘the needful’, which I can only get by working. I repeat it, you have taken my work from me.’
‘What do you mean to do?’ pursued Hunsden coolly. ‘You have influential relations; I suppose they’ll soon provide you with another place.’
‘Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names.’
‘The Seacombes.’
‘Stuff! I have cut them.’
Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
‘I have,’ said I, ‘and that definitively.’
‘You must mean they have cut you, William.’