He returned thanks for all this in his usual manner, but there was an occasional blankness of expression on his countenance; he was truly glad to have discovered his daughter, but he found that she was never to owe him an immense debt of gratitude for her reformation, and he had built upon that whenever they were thrown together, father and child, at last. Beyond his home he must look once more for the obdurate specimen that he could attack, follow up, analyze and dissect, with the gusto of a surgeon over "as fine a case as ever he saw in his life!"
But that home—in a very little time what a different place it was to him! He found in Mattie all that he could have made of her, and after awhile he was more than content. He was a man who made but little show of earthly affection, and possibly deceived Mattie, who took his love for duty more often than he wished, though it was his pride to abjure all evidence of earthly affection, and to consider himself, as he termed it, above it. He was a man who deceived himself by this—people have that peculiar trait of character now and then, and place credence in their own impossibilities.
Mr. Gray was a lithographer by trade—a man who would have earned more money had not his preaching interfered with his work, and had he not been rather too particular for a business man upon what work he engaged himself. A crotchety, irritable being, who brought his religion into his business, and, therefore, occasionally muddled both. On one occasion he had been horrified by the receipt of an order to lithograph several scenes from the last new pantomime, to be exhibited on broadsheets outside the theatre-doors, and in tobacconists' shops; and having declined to be an agent in such a "Worke of the Beast," had been dismissed from the staff of a firm which he had faithfully-served for many years. He had lived hard after that, known what it was to be penniless and fireless, and almost bootless, but those unpleasant sensations had their comforts for him—they were evidences of his sacrifice for his character's sake, and he had fought on doggedly till other employment came, which brought his head above water. He was a man who never gave way in his opinions, or sacrificed them for his personal convenience—a disagreeable man more often than not, but a man respected amongst his chapel-circle, and who, when once understood—that was not often, however—was generally liked. A man who dealt in hard truths, and had not invariably the gentlest method of distributing them; but a man who loved to see justice done to all oppressed, and did his best after his own way.
His first attempt to do justice, after Mattie's acquaintance with him, was in Mattie's favour. He understood all the reasons for Mattie's departure from Great Suffolk Street, and he saw where Mr. Wesden had been deceived, and in what manner he had been led by degrees to form a false estimate of Mattie's conduct.
He was a fidgety man, we have implied—more than that, he was an excitable and restless man.
"I must see that Mr. Wesden again—we must both see him, Mattie," he said one evening.
"Oh! I can never face him," said Mattie, in an alarmed manner, "after all that he has thought of me. I could not bear to ask him to confess that he was in the wrong, if he will not confess it of his own free will."
"But he shall, my dear!"
"I can't explain the robberies—can't prove that I was innocent of all implication in them. I was a thief once, and he will never forget that."
"Won't he?" said Mr. Gray, decisively; "we'll see about that. I'll rouse him, my dear, depend upon it. The first opportunity I have, I'll call upon that man, and—rouse him."