People about Lincoln's-inn began in these days to turn their heads and
look after the shabbily-dressed old printer, who passed them to stop
every now and then at a lamp-post, and then go on again, shaking his
head like an anglicised mandarin, for old Matt was sorely troubled about
the state of affairs in Bennett's-rents. At times he would be for
making a confidant of Mr Sterne, and asking his advice and guidance,
but somehow there always seemed a certain amount of suspicion on either
side, and Matt and the curate maintained a gap between them which
neither attempted to cross. But the old man was after all not unhappy,
for he was enjoying that supreme pleasure which fills the heart, making
it swell almost painfully--that pleasure which never satiates, while it
is like the seed of the parable cast into the ground, some may be
blighted, some trampled down, but there are always certain grains which
flourish and give to the sower a hundredfold of grain in return. Old
Matt was enjoying the pleasure of doing good and helping a fellow-man in
distress. It may be questioned whether the old man's path was ever
easier or more brightly irradiated than during his connection with the
Hardons. True, his income was of the very smallest; but then it is not
the extent of a man's income that gives him pleasure in this life, but
the secret of having all the possible enjoyment out of it. Some with
wealth seek for this enjoyment after a wrong fashion, and find only
bitterness, while in the homes of poverty joy often finds an
abiding-place.
Septimus Hardon often wondered afterwards how they had managed to live
in this time of trouble; but one way and another the days passed by.
Now he would make a few shillings by his copying, then there was Lucy's
work, while, in spite of remonstrances, old Matt persisted in enjoying
his income after his own fashion, playing his little miserable farces to
his own satisfaction, and then grinning to himself over the little bits
of deceit. He never stopped, shrewd as he was, to ask himself whether
his subterfuges were not of the most transparent; they gained him his
end, and he considered that it was a novel and a neat way of managing
the matter, when a hint at lending money would have given offence.
One day succeeded another, with the family struggling on, Mrs Septimus
helping Lucy when she could, while, as for Septimus, the most
satisfactory work he obtained was that of copying sermons out for Mr
Sterne; though, strange as it may seem, that gentleman never once used
Septimus Hardon's clear, unblurred transcript, but put it away week
after week, sighing that his income was not greater.
Septimus had now given up all hope of hearing from his father, and,
resigned somewhat to his fate, he bent over his writing-table trying to
make up by perseverance what he wanted in ability--a capital plan, and
one that has succeeded where talent has made a miserable failure, as old
Aesop knew hundreds of years ago. As for asking his uncle for aid, such
a thought never crossed Septimus Hardon's mind, and perhaps it was well,
for it spared the poor sensitive man the unpleasantry of a refusal.
One day, all in a hurry and bustle, up came old Matt, just at
dinner-time, to find Mrs Septimus making a sorry failure in her attempt
to find an invalid's dinner in some bread and a long slice of cheese
that a laundress would easily have seized by mistake, under the
impression that it was "best yellow soap."
"There, just like me!" exclaimed the old man, with a hasty glance round
the room; "just like me; but you won't mind, I know. I always drop in
at mealtimes.--There, give us a kiss, my man. God bless you! `What I
dot for 'oo?' There's a pretty way to talk! Why, let's see; I think
there's something here--down in here somewhere;" and the old man began
to dive behind into one of his pockets. "To be sure, here it is!" he
cried; "and if all the rich jam isn't coming through the paper! Here we
are," he cried, bringing out of a little bag a small oval paste-dish
with a crimped edge, full of a very luscious treacly-looking preserve,
one that, ten minutes before, had been danced over by the flies in the
pastrycook's shop in the Lane.
Off went little Tom rejoicing, to prepare himself for the after-dinner
wash by gumming his chubby face and hands with the jam.
"You won't mind, sir; and, ma'am, I hope?" said Matt apologetically.
"But I'm full of work, and haven't time to go home--my lodgings you
know; and if you wouldn't mind. I'm as hungry as a hunter--
money-hunter, you know; and there's as nice a bit of roast veal and
bacon, piping hot, in the Lane as ever I did see, and that's saying a
good deal. Talk about the smell of it! there, you didn't look in at the
shop-door or you'd never give a fellow such a cold-shouldery look,
ma'am. Whatever you do, ma'am, lend me a couple of plates; I won't
intrude long."
Mrs Septimus hesitated and glanced at her husband, who was making a
feint of eating.
"There," cried old Matt, making a grimace, and glancing at Lucy, "I knew
it would come to this; they're growing proud, and I may go. They might
have put it off another day, and not showed it just when I feel so well
and jolly, and could have enjoyed a bit of dinner, which ain't often
with me."
Septimus Hardon saw his wife's appealing glance, and peered about him in
every direction, as if to avoid giving an answer; but on one side there
was Tom, sticky and happy with the old man's bounty; before him was his
invalid wife, with her wretched face; again, there was Lucy working, and
relieving hunger by occasional mouthfuls of the bread-and-cheese at her
side; while on turning his eyes in another direction, there stood Matt,
just as he had stood on the day when he borrowed a shilling on their
first encounter.
What was he to do? He had as much pride, or false pride, as most men,
and he would gladly have been independent of old Matt's assistance; but
there seemed no help for it, and once more in his life, humbled and
mortified, he nodded to Mrs Septimus; and the next moment old Matt
stood irresolutely by the table clattering a couple of plates together,
to the great endangering of their safety, as he seemed to be turning
them into a pair of earthenware cymbals.
"There, sir; don't, now," said Matt earnestly; "don't let's have any
more pretence or nonsense about it; don't be put out because I'm doing
this, sir. 'Tain't that I don't respect you; I didn't get on the
stilts, sir, when you helped me. I asked you for it, which is a thing I
know you couldn't do; but when it's offered you free and humble-like,
don't take on, sir, and fancy I respect you any the less. I sha'n't
forget my place, sir, 'pon my soul I sha'n't, begging your pardon,
ma'am, and Miss Lucy's; but you see I'm in earnest, and it worries me to
see Mr Hardon here put out, because--because--Well, you know," said
Matt, with a twinkle in his eye, "because an old battered type of
humanity like me wants to sit down and have a bit of dinner here, and
it's all getting spoilt; best cut's gone, you know, I'm sure. I know I
_am_ shabby."
Septimus waved his hand deprecatingly.
"There, sir; there," continued Matt; "don't be down; don't let the world
see as there's no more fight in you. See what a son and daughter you've
got. Why, God bless 'em, they're enough to make a man of a chap if he's
ever so bad. Never say die, sir. I'm often in the downs, I am, you
know; but then I say to the world, `Come on, and let's have it out at
once and done with it.' Let's take it like a dose of physic, and then
have the sugar that's to come and take the taste out of one's mouth
afterwards. Sure to be a bit of sugar to come some time, you know, sir;
some gets more than others, but then there's always a share for you if
you won't be soft enough to get your mouth out of taste and fancy it's
bitter when it comes, and so not enjoy it. Lots do, you know, sir;
while lots more, sir, think so much of their sugar of life, sir, that
they spoil it, sir,--foul it, and damp it, and turn it into a muddy,
sticky, dirty treacle, sir; and then, sir, loving nothing but
pleasure,--or sugar, as we call it,--how they buzz about it like so many
flies, till they are surfeited and get their legs and wings fixed, and
die miserably, sir. Sugar's no good, sir, unless you have a taste of
bitter before it. You don't want to be having all pleasure, you know;
it wouldn't do. Bound the wheel of fortune, you know, sir; now down,
now up, just as times go."
All these meant-to-be-philosophical remarks old Matt accompanied by a
cymbalic tune upon the two plates, while Septimus sat moody and silent.
"Now, you see, sir," said Matt gently, "I know what you feel,--you don't
like having such a battered old hulk about your place, and feel a bit
offended at me for imposing upon your good-nature."
Septimus made a gesture of dissent.
"Well then, sir, we won't play with the matter. You don't like my
having a bit of dinner here, and all that sort of thing; but don't you
make no mistake, sir, I ain't kicked about in a selfish world all these
years without ketching the complaint. I was never vaccinated against
selfishness, sir, so I've took it badly, I can tell you. You may look
out, sir, for I've a long score chalked up against you, and you'll have
it some day."
And then old Matt stuck his hat on very fiercely and shuffled out of the
room, muttering and chuckling as he went down, "Ho, ho, ho!--creditor!
New position for me as have been in debt all my life!"
The old man soon returned after his fashion, bringing in a large portion
of the veal and bacon from the cook-shop in the Lane; for the best cuts
were not all gone. Then followed the old farce of what he called his
chronometric complaint, from its always coming on just at mealtimes; and
helping himself to a slice of bread, in spite of all appeals, the old
man took a sticky kiss from Tom and shuffled out of the room.
It was a sight worth seeing--the satisfaction of that grim old man, as
he went chuckling down the creaking stairs, and out into the court. His
was not the shape a painter would have chosen for the embodiment of
gratitude; but there it was--even the battered, ill-used carcass of that
old printer--a body misused by the hard world till he had grown careless
of it himself, and misused it in his turn. Alone in the world, what had
he to care for beyond a little present enjoyment? For as to the future,
it is to be feared that Mr Sterne would have pronounced him as being
beneath a dense black cloud. Twice was the old man stopped by
lamp-posts, but he recollected himself and continued his route to where
the open door of the cook-shop sent out a thick, kitcheny vapour,
pleasant or the reverse, according to whose organs it assailed--to the
well-fed perhaps disgusting, but to the poor and hungry an odour as of
paradise. There upon the shining pewter dishes, that in the early morn
had been such a dry metallic desert, were now displayed, in gravy-oozing
majesty, what Matt looked upon as all the delicacies of the season.
There were round of beef and brisket, boiled; roast leg, shoulder, and
loin of mutton; roast beef, and the remains of the veal; while as to
gravy--whence comes the gravy that meanders in streams over cook-shop
joints, flooding the dishes, and making glad the hearts of the hungry?--
there was gravy to an extent never known in private life, for the joints
soaked in the tissue-renovating fluid.
Ah! that fat cook-shop-keeper, as he wielded his long-bladed, keen
carver, and equitably and glibly sliced it through fat and lean,
well-done, under-done, and brown, with a facility that made one think he
had been apprenticed to a ham in the palmy days of Vauxhall--dealing
with the porcine joint with similar intentions to those of the
gold-beater with his morsel of the yellow ore. Ah! that fat, rosy-faced
man in the white cap and jacket had much to answer for in the way of
tempting hungry sinners. Fat! he might well be fat, for was he not
existing upon the very essences of the meats always beneath his
nostrils, which must have inhaled sustaining wealth at every breath he
drew, to the saving of both teeth and digestion?
But he did not tempt old Matt, who entered and asked for a "small
German," for which he paid twopence, asking no questions regarding its
composition, while it was delivered to him after the fashion that buns
are presented to our old ursine friends at the "Zoo"--stuck at the end
of a fork.
Old Matt turned his back stolidly upon the luxuries of the cook-shop,
strolled into the big street, and began to nibble his small German, in
company with the dusty, fluey slice of bread he brought out of his
pocket. There was a parish pump there, with its swinging copper handle;
and regardless of medical reports, and chemical analyses, and cholera
germs contained in the clear, sparkling fluid, old Matt had a hearty
draught, and smacked his lips after as if he enjoyed it--and doubtless
he did. There was the prospect of a murky old inn down a gateway, and
the busy throng of people passing him; but Matt noticed nothing, for his
thoughts were upon matters in Bennett's-rents--though, for all that, he
was enjoying his simple meal, which was eaten without a thought of the
prime veal and bacon, or his sad complaint, which had now fled till next
dinner-time, as, by way of amusement, he turned down Castle-street to
witness the performance of a gentleman in tights and spangles--a
gentleman evidently high in his profession, but blessed with a nose of
the Whitechapel mould, black, greasy, tucked-under hair, confined by a
blue ribbon, slightly oiled; a pimply face, and a body apparently
furnished with gristle in the place of bones.
As Matt came up, the gentleman was balancing a peacock's feather upon
the tip of his nose, to the accompaniment of a popular air performed by
a partner upon drum and pan-pipes--the arrangement of the air apparently
necessitating more muscular action with the arms than from the lungs;
for though now and then a shrill and piercing note was heard from the
pipes, it was not often, while the rumble of the beaten drum was
incessant. The next performance was the balancing and twirling of a
barrel on the acrobat's feet, he all that time lying down upon a cushion
in a very uncomfortable, determination-of-the-blood-to-the-head
position, what time the band, tucking his pipes inside his coat and
setting his drum on end, came round the attentive circle, shaking the
performer's greasy, private-life cap in the observers' faces, after the
fashion of zealous deacons in churches of high proclivities--save that
in this case the cap was of very common cloth, while in the other the
little bags would probably be of red velvet, lined with white satin.
The band stopped opposite old Matt, who had loudly applauded the
performance, for he had felt so at peace with the world at large, that
he was in the humour to be pleased with any and everything. So the old
man thrust a willing hand into his pocket, and the band smiled
expectant; but the next moment Matt's face turned very serious, and with
the loud taunt of the band ringing in his ears, he shuffled down
Castle-street and into Cursitor-street, in the direction of the office
where he had a job; far more piercing than the shrillest note of the
pipes, and more impressive than the heaviest bang of the drum, came the
words of the musician:--
"Well, if I hadn't ha' had a brown I'd ha' said so, and not made
believe."
For the old printer's pocket did not contain a coin of any description,
the last two having been expended for his simple meal; so hurrying along
the old fellow looked very serious for quite fifty yards; then he began
to whistle; then he stopped at a lamp-post, but wrenched himself away
again directly and hurried down Fetter-lane, for the clocks were
striking two, and his dinner-hour was over. But before turning into
Typeland Matt entered into one of those well-known places of business
with swinging doors, and shuffling up to the pewter-covered counter,
asked for a pint of porter on trust.
And went away wiping his mouth upon the back of his hand, of course?
Nothing of the kind; for the landlord smiled pleasantly, shook his head,
and declared that whenever he gave trust he lost a customer. So old
Matt slinked away, and soon came to another swing-door, when, passing
through, a far different odour saluted his nostrils--an odour commingled
of steam, oil, treacle, glue, turpentine, stale breath, fresh paint, wet
paper, and gas; where there was a continual noise of hissing, and
rumbling of wheels, rattling of straps and bands, with a constant
vibration of the great building, which heavily brooded over the reeking
mass, as if hatching earthquakes. Up a staircase, whose walls shone
with the marks of inky and oily hands, past dirty-faced boys in
paper-caps and aprons, whose shirt-sleeves were rolled high above their
elbows; past a window, a glance through which showed mighty engine and
machine rushing off their work in never-tiring mode, wheels spinning,
cylinders slowly revolving, with white sheets of paper running in,
printed sheets running out, to be piled in stacks; here the portion of a
magazine whose pages should rivet the attention of some fair reader;
there the newspaper, to be spread in thousands through the length and
breadth of the land; while again, close at hand, lumbered the heavy
press to turn off by hand copies of the broad-margined, large-typed,
thick-papered Chancery bill, whose legible words should nearly drive
some weary disputant mad, although but a short time before its well-paid
pages and open work had made glad the heart of a round-shouldered
compositor--sower of the dragons' teeth of knowledge. Up still went old
Matt Space--past boys bearing proof-sheets--boys who read copy in a
sing-song, nasal, pointless twang to keen-eyed readers, ready to give
angry stabs at ill-spelt words, to stick their pens through eyeless i's,
and condemn the mutilated letters to the melting-pot; past pressmen
toiling--down, Benjamin-Franklin-like, with heavy forms of type; up--up,
till he reached the top story, where, beneath rows of skylights, men
formed themselves into the hotbeds that generated disease, as they
toiled on day after day at the cases of type, before a pair of which old
Matt posted himself, took a pinch of snuff, and then prepared for work.
In a few more minutes he was hard at his task, picking up letter by
letter the component parts of the words spoken the day before at a
public meeting, where an orator discoursed at length upon the financial
greatness of this our country; after which he dived into statistics, so
that the old compositor was soon realising the facts, and revelling in
sums of money eight figures in length, and that, too, without a single
penny in his pocket.
Click, click; click, click; letter after letter passing into the metal
composing-sticks; thirty men busily engaged, and not a word spoken
beyond the occasional muttering whisper of the worker, who sought to
impress his MS more fully upon his mind by reading it aloud; while old
Matt, poring over his copy by the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, now
and then paused for a stimulator from the snuff loose by accident in his
coat-pocket hanging from a nail in the wall--snuff that had to be hunted
into corners and brought forth in pinches, the greater proportion of
which consisted of flue and crumbs.
"Pound, nine, comma; eight, four, three, comma; six, four, two,"
muttered the old man, arranging the figures. "Ah, bless my soul! now,
what could I do with nine--nearly ten millions of money? And that sum's
nothing at all. Poverty? Pooh! all humbug! There isn't such a thing;
it's all a mistake. Somebody's got more than his share, and made things
crooked."
Old Matt finished his task, and, on applying to the overseer for a fresh
supply, he was set to correct a slip proof, when, taking the long column
of type from which it had been printed, the old man was soon busy at
work once more, correcting a misspelt word in this paragraph, removing a
broken letter in that, and all the while muttering to himself, to the
great amusement of the other men. But all at once he stopped short and
stared at his work, looked eagerly round the office, as if to assure
himself that all was real, and then devoured the words before him. Then
he went on with his work in a flurried, nervous way, dropping words,
misplacing letters, scattering type upon the floor, and making his
fellow-workmen look up with wonder--attentions that made the old man
more nervous and fidgety; until, as his nervousness increased, so did
his task become more difficult of completion, the perspiration standing
upon his forehead, and the expression of his face growing pitiful in the
extreme.
But it was complete at last, though, through anxiety, old Matt had been
twice as long as he would have been in an ordinary way; and then
secretly tearing off a portion of the proof, he slipped it into his
pocket, made an excuse to the overseer that he was unwell, and hurried
into the street, where he jostled first one, and now another; now
walking in the road, now upon the pavement, but all the while with one
hand clasping tightly a scrap of paper he held in his pocket. As to
what was going on around him he seemed so utterly oblivious that twice
over he was nearly knocked down by passing vehicles. Again and again he
would have stopped, but for the busy throng constantly hurrying along
the street; and for the time being the old man strongly resembled a cork
tossed about in some busy eddying stream; but he had evidently some
object in view, for he kept pressing on in one particular direction, and
his lips were incessantly in motion, forming words that savoured
continually of that much-sought-for object--money.
Volume One, Chapter XV.