As soon as the door was once more closed—a rare position for it, and one which it resented for some time, until Ikey had poked the corners clean with an awl, and oiled the lock—old Matt said huskily:
“Put your hand, sir, under my pillow. That’s it, that there little Bible. Know it, sir?” he said, for Septimus Hardon had changed colour, and his hands were trembling. “That took me a long time to get, sir,” and then he slowly and painfully told what he said he would have spared Miss Lucy if he could, but it was not to be; how he had seen Agnes Hardon lying dead, she whom he knew now to have been Agnes Hardon; how he had attended the inquest, and then tried to get a Bible that had been there mentioned, seeking for it day after day, night after night, ready to drop always, but feeling that he should succeed in spite of all. He searched the streets, he said, but all in vain; and at last he began to fear that the poor girl to whom Agnes gave the Bible had emulated her fate, when he recalled the address of the juryman, found to his delight she had been there, and through the stranger’s influence obtained the prize he sought.
“And now,” said Matt, “I’m happy. I can feel, sir, that I’ve done one little bit of good in my life, and I can go easy. Now, sir that book.”
Septimus, wondering and surprised, turned from Matt to Lucy, sobbing and horror-stricken at the old man’s recital, for much of what he heard now had yet to be explained to him; but the old man was intent upon the little Bible, one that Septimus remembered to have seen at home in his father’s desk.
“Now!” exclaimed the old man, with hands trembling, and eyes appealing, lest his hearers should lose anything of what he disclosed; “now look, look, look!” he cried, “I fastened it down again, as it was before. A knife, quick! Now look here,” he said huskily, and he tried to insert the blade of the penknife given to him beneath the fly-leaf, groaning bitterly at his inability, when, with hands trembling nearly as much, Septimus took Bible and knife, loosened the paper round, and laid it open, when the first thing that met his eyes, in his father’s clear handwriting, was the date of the marriage, and eighteen months after appeared the entry of his birth, while upon the opposite side, in a delicate woman’s hand, were the words—
“Agnes Hardon.
The gift of Uncle Octavius.”
“There, there, there, sir! That’s it, isn’t it, sir?” cried the old man excitedly. “I wouldn’t rest till I’d got it, and ’twas hard work, for the poor girl clung to it as the gift of someone she loved; but the more she hung back, the more I was set upon having it. I knew enough of binding to see that the end-leaf was gummed down, and under that leaf I knew there was what I wanted. Here; breath!” he gasped; “open the window.”
Septimus Hardon sat gazing dreamily at the entry in his hand; it was indisputable, though he could hardly believe in its truth, while the few words he heard coming from the weeping girl seemed only to add to the confused state of his mind; but it appeared to him now that the old man’s condition was the first thing to consider, and placing the book in his pocket, he begged that he might try and have him removed to his own lodgings.
“No,” said Matt feebly, “no; I won’t leave here, for somehow these people love me after their way, and I seem to think that the end should be much what the life has been; and as to doctor, sir, why I’ve got one here,” he said, gazing fondly up in Lucy’s weeping face, “and if she’ll stop here, and let me hold her hand, God bless her! I can go easy, for it will seem to keep ill away. No other doctor’s any use, sir. I’m worn out, sir, worn out!”
But Septimus would not be satisfied, and leaving Lucy by the old man’s side, he fetched assistance to his old friend.