"Now, just a toothful of my orange cordial, Master Sep. Now, don't say no, because you must. I make it myself, and the gentlemen take it on hunting-days. Now, tip it up like a good boy; and here's a biscuit.

See now; don't it put you in mind of old times, when you were a naughty child, and wouldn't take your physic? How time does go, to be sure; why, it's only like yesterday. But there, I won't bother you. Have a pair of slippers and a comfortable wash. Did you bring any luggage?"

Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and then Septimus was again seated in the snug bar, with the kettle singing its song of welcome upon the hob; a savoury steak was before him; and the comely old dame, in her rustling black silk, smilingly pouring out the strong tea she had been brewing, taking a cup too herself, "just for sociability sake," as she told her visitor.

"And so poor master's gone, and you're coming down to the old place again?" said Mrs Lower.

Septimus groaned.

"Ah, Master Sep, I can respect your feelings; but though poor master's dead and gone, he had his failings, while he never did his duty either by you or your poor mother."

Septimus Hardon nearly dropped his cup as he gazed blankly in his old nurse's face.

"What--what do you mean?" he exclaimed.

"Why, he was always hard, and--But there, poor man, he's dead and gone, and we all have our failings, and plenty of them. But come, my dear boy, pray do eat something."

Septimus tried to eat a few morsels, but his appet.i.te was gone, and he soon laid down his knife and fork.

"Of course you'll come down and live at the old place, Master Sep?" said Mrs Lower.

Septimus shook his head sadly.

"O, Master Sep!" cried the old lady, "don't sell it; don't part with it, it would be a sin."

"But it will never be mine!" cried Septimus pa.s.sionately. "O, nurse, nurse! this is a hard and a bitter world. I came down here almost in rags, tramping down like a beggar, and now, in cold and brutal terms, my uncle tells me that I am a b.a.s.t.a.r.d--that I have no right to enter my own father's house; while, if this is true, I am a beggar still."

Mrs Lower looked astounded. "What," she exclaimed, "does he mean to say? But there, it's nonsense. You can soon prove to him that you are not."

"How?" exclaimed Septimus wearily. "Everything goes against me. I have been away ten years; my father sent me from his house; he refused all communications with me; and now I return on the day before the funeral."

"O, but you must go to the lawyers!" cried Mrs Lower. "They can put you right."

The couple sat talking for some time. It was refreshing to Septimus to find so sincere a welcome, for he had put Mrs Lower's hospitality to the test on the strength of the sovereign his aunt had slipped into his hand. But the old dame could give him no information touching his birth, and but little respecting the place and time of his father's marriage.

Weary at length of the subject, Septimus listened to the history of Somesham during the past few years, till, taking compa.s.sion upon her visitor's jaded looks, Mrs Lower showed him his bedroom, where he tried to forget his present sorrows in sleep.

But sleep came not, and he tossed feverishly from side to side, bewildered by the thoughts that rushed through his brain: old faces, old scenes, and, foremost among them, home, and the stern countenance of his father, came crowding back. Now he would doze, but to start up in a few minutes under the impression that he was called. He dozed off again and again, but always to start up with the same fancy, and once he felt so sure that he leaped out of bed and opened his door; but the dark pa.s.sage was empty, and all without quite still, so he returned to his bed, sat there for a few minutes thinking, and then went to the window, drew the blind, and stood gazing out upon the buildings of the familiar market-place.

The wind swept by, swinging the old sign to and fro, while all looked so calm and peaceful that he returned to his bed, and again tried for rest, falling into a fevered, half sleeping, half waking state, wherein the old faces still came crowding back, now nearer and nearer, now seeming to vanish away into nothingness, till at last that one old face seemed to exclude all others, and he saw his father as he saw him last, frowning harshly upon him; but soon the face a.s.sumed an aspect of pity, a look that told the suffering man that he was forgiven, before it changed into the frigid hardness of death.

Septimus Hardon started up in bed and gazed at the dim, shaded window, hardly realising where he was, as he tried to get rid of the dread image which oppressed him; but the night through, hour after hour, as soon as he closed his eyes, there was the same cold, stern face, as though impressed upon his brain, and wanting but the exclusion of the light for him to direct his gaze inward upon the fixed lineaments. So on, hour after hour, dozing and starting up, till the first streaks of the coming day appeared in the east, and as they grew stronger, peering in through the bedroom window, and holding forth to view the various objects in the room in a half-shadowed, ghostly manner that completely chased away the remaining desire for sleep that lingered with the unnerved man.

"Knocked three times, mem," said Charles, "and can't make him hear."

"Never mind," said Mrs Lower. "I'll go myself presently."

Mrs Lower had carefully prepared what she considered a snug breakfast, and put her regular body to no slight inconvenience by waiting past her usual hour for the morning meal; but she thought of her visitor's fatigue and trouble.

"He can't do better than sleep, poor boy," she muttered, descending the stairs, after listening at the bedroom door for the third time; when she sat in the bar and waited for quite an hour, till suddenly a thought struck her, which set her trembling and wringing her hands, and her comely old face worked as she tried to keep back the tears.

"O, if he has--if he has! O, my poor boy!" she exclaimed, hurrying up the staircase, and stumbling at every second step in her agitation. "O, Charles, come with me!"

The door yielded to her touch, and almost falling against the bed, Mrs Lower found it empty, while the pillow was quite cold.

"O, look round--look round, Charles!" she gasped, as she sank upon her knees at the bedside, and buried her face in the clothes.

"No one here, mem," said Charles, after a cursory glance round--not being able to comprehend his mistress's emotion.

"O, look behind the door, Charles!" gasped Mrs Lower; "and at the bedposts."

"Silk dress behind the fust, and wallance and hangings on the seconds,"

said Charles methodically. "What next, mem?"

"Can't you see him, Charles?" said Mrs Lower, slowly raising her head.

"No, mem," said Charles; "he's gone, safe. Did he pay, mem?"

"Nonsense!" cried Mrs Lower angrily; "he was a friend of mine;" and then the doubting dame carefully examined the room, looking in the most impossible of corners for the missing visitor, and only stopping as she was about to peer up the chimney by seeing a half-concealed grin upon the face of Charles.

"I'll ask Boots if he's seen him, mem," said Charles, to get out of his difficulty.

But that gentleman had neither seen Septimus Hardon nor the articles of clothing after which he was named; so that it seemed evident that the visitor had taken his unbrushed boots and departed.

"So very strange!" muttered Mrs Lower to herself.

"The seediest pair of boots we've ever had in the place," said Charles in confidence to the chambermaid; and then, after due cogitation, he came to the conclusion that if many of the visitors to the County Arms were like the unknown of the past night, his situation would not be worth the energy he displayed for the comfort of all who sought there rest and refreshment.

Volume One, Chapter XVII.

"NOTHING LIKE LEATHER."

The very morning upon which waiter Charles of the County Arms, Somesham, spoke so disparagingly of Septimus Hardon's boots, the maker, or rather re-maker, of the said boots sat, as soon as it was broad daylight--not an extremely early hour in his home--industriously plying his craft, till, after divers muttered anathemas, a voice growled:

"Confound it, Ike, I wish that old lapstone was at the bottom of the Thames. Who's to sleep?"

"Get up, then," said the lapstone-smiter slowly and heavily.

"Get up!" growled the voice, "get up!"

"What, in the middle of the night! Ain't six yet, is it?"

"Just struck," said the lapstone-man, following the example of the clock, and hammering vigorously at a sc.r.a.p of leather about to be used in the repair of an old boot before him; while from sundry smothered growls coming from the room behind the shop where the shoemaker was at work, it was evident that the idler had buried a portion, if not the whole of his face, beneath the blankets, and again offered sacrifice to the sleepy G.o.d.

It had always been a matter of dispute amongst the confraternity as to where Matthew s.p.a.ce slept. Some said that he reposed nightly amongst the casuals at Saint Martin's Workhouse; but as, when he had work, he would often be at it by half-past eight in the morning, it was evident that he did not lodge there; for the most industrious would not be at liberty for another hour, on account of the work to be done in payment for the lodging. Others talked of the Adelphi, and the recesses of Waterloo Bridge. In short, there was always plenty of chaff flying concerning old Matt's lodgings; but the cleverest never threshed out the grain of wheat they sought, for the old man was as close a tusk as was ever attacked by flail. His club was generally considered to be the mouldy, fungoid-looking house in Hemlock-court, where he could mostly be found of an evening, if the seeker had failed to see him sitting over his pint-pot in Bell-yard; and, according to circ.u.mstances, he dined at various places. If trade flourished, and the ill wind that blew misery to Chancery suitors wafted half-crowns to his pocket, he dined in state at the cook-shop, shut up in one of the little elbow-cramping boxes, where there were dirty table-cloths, and everything was steamy and sticky with the pervading vapour, whose odour was as that of the soup-copper after the "inmates" have had their pauper repast; sometimes in the street, as we have seen, when his dinners varied--kidney-pies, saveloys, peas-pudding served on paper, or perhaps only the warm tuber taken from a potato can; though, when funds were low, Matt generally leaned towards the kidney pieman, an old friend with a red nose and a white ap.r.o.n, augmented at night by very business-like white sleeves, when, extinguishing the c.o.ke-fire of his tin, he became a trotter himself for the time being, as he went from public-house to gin-palace disposing of his stock of succulent sheep's-feet. There was a great deal of the epicure in Matt s.p.a.ce, and had he been a Roman emperor he might have been as lavish in the recorded worship of the gastric region.

As it was, he had always looked upon money as of value only for the pleasure it afforded his palate, till better feelings had been roused within him. Well versed was Matt in the edibles best suited for families of large size but small income; he was deep in tripe, was old Matt s.p.a.ce, and he knew the shop in Clare-market and Newport-market best worthy of confidence. You never caught him buying sausages at random, nor yet purchasing his baked sheep's-heads or f.a.gots in Leather-lane.

No; Matt knew better; and if he could not get the prime article, he would content himself with a penny-loaf and two ounces of single Glo'ster. No one could get such sc.r.a.ps from the butcher's as Matt; and if any one of his acquaintance wanted a pound or two, it was almost worth their while to ask the old man to dinner, for the sake of getting him to undertake the commission. For did not the old fox always go into the Lane by Lincoln's-inn, where such a trade was done in chops that the butcher must have bought his sheep nearly all loin, and that, too, of the primest, for the legal gentlemen of the district were rather particular. As to distance Matt never studied that when he was bent upon any delicacy, being ready to visit Saint Martin's-lane for hot black-puddings, Leadenhall-market for c.o.c.ks'-heads or giblets, Billingsgate for c.o.c.kles or mussels; but all to oblige friends.

Now, although old Matt made great shifts over his dinners, he revelled in his tea; that is to say, his evening coffee--coffee-shop tea being a decoction, as the tea is carefully boiled to the extraction of all its strength, but to the destruction of all flavour, and Matt foolishly preferred the simple infusion of everyday life. So Matt enjoyed his evening coffee--a half-pint cup for a penny, and three large greasy slices of bread-and-b.u.t.ter for the same coin--the b.u.t.ter being always the best Dorset, slightly rank in the eating, and prepared by some peculiar Dutch process without the a.s.sistance of cows. Old Matt never missed his tea if his funds would at all hold out; for at this delectable coffee-house there were newspapers and, better still, magazines of so tempting a nature that they often made the old man late back to his duties. The real enjoyment that he felt over his book must have flavoured the repast, for he always seemed to relish these meals immensely. Generally speaking, men of his trade--haunters of his haunts--are rabid politicians; but not so Matt: missing a glance at the morning or evening paper never troubled him; but still there were times when the old printer took an interest in questions current; and if "the poor man" happened to be on the _tapis_, Matt digested the leading articles most carefully.