“Lord, Miss Lucy,” said Matt, turning the steak upon the gridiron, and distributing a most appetising odour through the room, where more than once of late hunger had sat gaunt and staring,—“Lord, Miss Lucy, how I should like to see you with one of those new machines; stitch away they do, and the work comes running out by the yard.”
Lucy sighed, and pressed a sore finger to her rosy lips.
“’Spose I may put the cloth on, miss, mayn’t I?” said Matt, who was quite at home in the place.
Lucy nodded; and the old man soon had the cloth spread, and the steak done; when, pulling a long face, he groaned heavily.
“There!” he exclaimed, “that’s always the way. Who’d be troubled with a complaint? Thought I could just pick a bit; but now it’s all nice and ready, and as prime as can be, I’m done. Such a steak as that is, too, juicy and done to a twist, and the very best cut out of the whole beast. But there, don’t let it be spoiled, miss, please;” and before anyone could stay him the old man was shuffling down the stairs, chuckling to himself as he made his way into the court, while Septimus, stung to the heart by his poverty, and overcome by the old man’s kindness, left his chair, and began to pace the room wringing his hands.
“O, that it should have come to this! O, that it should have come to this!” he groaned; but the next moment Mrs Septimus had forgotten her own trouble, and was weeping upon his breast, while Lucy had work enough to pacify the frightened child.
“Don’t, don’t, darling,” whispered Mrs Septimus in a supplicating voice. “I know it is all my fault, and I’m thinking of it constantly; but don’t let me think that you reproach me, or it will kill me outright.”
There was such agony of spirit in Mrs Hardon’s words that Septimus forgot his own wounded pride and misery by turn, in busily trying to soothe the poor invalid, who gladly took her seat at the table, while Septimus, with a smile upon his countenance, kept on vowing how hopeful he would be, as, casting pride to the winds, he distributed old Matt’s much-needed steak, not hesitating to partake himself of the old man’s bounty.
A gleam of hopeful sunshine seemed to have darted into the room that afternoon as Septimus sat busily writing, and the sharp click of needle upon thimble could be heard from the back-room, where Mrs Septimus was busy helping Lucy, so that the work might be finished in time, though every now and then it fell to someone’s lot to amuse the little boy, who, a very spoiled tyrant, seemed bent upon being as capricious and unreasonable as children can be at times. But ever and again the wrinkles would deepen upon Septimus Hardon’s forehead, and he would lay down his pen, in dread lest he should include some of his busy thoughts in his copying. What should he do to better his condition? Time back it had seemed so easy a task, that of keeping his wife and children; but, put to the proof, how difficult. Some that he saw were almost without trouble; wealth poured in upon them in return for their bright thoughts. And why should not he be rich when schemes in plenty came flashing to his brain? There were scores of fortunes to be made had he but capital—that golden key that should open the treasure-house; but he was poor—a beggar, as he told himself again and again, when, to drive away the thoughts, he stooped over his copying, but only to lay it aside once more and sigh.
Old Matt came again that evening, vowing that he was much better, for he had been trying a favourite remedy of his—abstinence. “A first-rate thing, sir, for indigestion,” said Matt; “rather lowering, certainly, but surprisingly efficacious as a medicine, while it costs nothing, and saves at the same time. A good walk helps, too, but then that requires what the shoe-shops call a pair of ‘stout walking,’ and my old feet want an easy style of boot. I wouldn’t use a new boot on any consideration,” said Matt, stretching out a dilapidated and crushed Wellington, polished to the highest pitch of lustre by a scarlet-coated brigadier. “I study comfort, sir; ease before appearances.”