Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

Old Matt Space had a certain amount of pride in his composition, and, like most people, he suffered for it. He would gladly have received assistance of the most trifling nature...

"There, there, there; sit down, sit down, sit down!" croaked old Octavius Hardon as he cowered over a miserable fire in his paper-strewn room. "Sit down, sit down, sit down," he...

Doctor Thomas Hardon, of Somesham, seemed likely to have full enjoyment of his brother's property, for Time kept on busy at work over his harvest. Septimus Hardon slowly and lab...

The more a poor and sensitive man confines himself within doors, the more he troubles himself with the fancy that everyone he meets is staring at and watching him when he stirs...

"Now, sir," said old Matt, as he appeared, brushed-up and smart for the occasion, punctual to his appointment; "now, sir; here we are--baptism, marriage, and doctor. First ought...

This is a world of change; but the time was when you could turn by Saint Clement's Church, from the roar of the waves of life in the Strand, and make your way between a baked-po...

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,...

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, an...

The task of the Reverend Arthur Sterne was weary, and one that might have made him sigh had he known no other troubles. Work, work, work, of the most disheartening character for...

There had been no occasion for Mr William Jarker to carry out the threat he had once made, for in all the long space of time during which Agnes Hardon's child was in Mrs Jarker'...

"I daresay, my man," said the surgeon sadly, "and so we all have; and I fear that when the day comes upon which we are called away, we shall have as much to do as ever."

There was a strange battle in the breast of the Reverend Arthur Sterne about this time. Now he would feel satisfied in his own mind that he had obtained the victory over self, w...

Bennett's-rents still upon that day--a bright breezy day--when for a whole hour the god that kisseth carrion shone down into the court to lick up every trace of green damp and m...

Times were hard with Septimus Hardon, and too often he was quite in despair. There was that difficult problem before him, always waiting to be solved, and he not able to solve i...

How ever great the shock of his night's adventure may have been to his system, Dr Hardon, beyond missing his attentions to a few patients, displayed very little of it to the wor...

"Do, sir?" exclaimed old Matt, pausing in his occupation of pulling the string to make a lathen figure throw out arms and legs for the delectation of little Tom,--"do, sir? Why,...

A heart at peace, doubtless, had much to do with the rapid strides towards convalescence taken by the Reverend Arthur Sterne, who, in direct opposition to the hints of his medic...

Mr William Jarker had had a long holiday from the public school where her Majesty's officers try to instil lessons of good, while their refractory pupils resent them to the best...

"Well, yes, sir," said Matt, standing hat in hand, "'tis snug and comfortable, sir; and I'm glad to see the change, and I'm sure I wish you long life to enjoy it. Glad you've go...

Old Matt Space came daily to Carey-street in search of a job, and generally made an excuse for seeing little Tom, for whom he had a cake, a biscuit, or some small penny toy, pur...

"Turn on the glim, Joe," croaked a harsh voice; when a bright light flashed in a broad, well-defined, ever-widening path right across the room, leaving the untouched portion in...

"You mad fool, Jean! you shall listen, and you shall hear all," cried _ma mere_ furiously; "and I will torment you till you see that you are _bete_. The little worker--the pink...

"A tom-cat, smooth-coated, purring rascal," said old Octavius when he heard the news. "_Doctor_ Hardon, indeed; _doctor_, bah!" And many of the townspeople of Somesham, though t...

"And he wants you, too, Miss," said the man. "O dear, O dear! he was the only friend I ever had, and he came back the night afore last, after you'd been to ask for him. Not seen...

Old Matt did not wake again for many hours, but, as the days slipped by, he partook with avidity of all that was allowed him, and grumbled for more. His friend the house-surgeon...

"Such a beautiful, well-cut letter too!" said old Matt Space, as he stood looking at the empty type-rack from whence the cases had been taken to furnish money for Septimus Hardo...

For a good hour together Mr Jarker would rest in a broken-bottomed chair, smoking a short black pipe, his hands supporting his heavy chin, and his elbows making pits in his knee...

It was late before Arthur Sterne left Bennett's-rents that night. Septimus Hardon had been terribly excited--talking long and wildly of his poverty being the cause of the insult...

Men of business cannot afford to continue their grief for any length of time, hence at a very short date after the death of his wife, Mr William Jarker, bird-fancier, bird-catch...

With a pleasant smile upon his countenance, and a bunch of watercresses in his hand, Septimus Hardon hummed loudly, like some jocular bee, as he entered his rooms one day, when...

Night after night, noticed by the curate during his wanderings, by _ma mere_, and by Mr William Jarker, birdcatcher, when distant trips had detained him until late hours, there...

In the faint light of early morning, some ten years after the scene described in the last chapter, at that cold dank hour when the struggle is going on between night and day, an...

All the renters appertaining to Bennett's were either out in the court, or at door and window, on the day that Mrs Jarker was buried; while Lucy gladdened the heart of Jean Mara...

In the gloomiest part of that gloomy street called Carey, and in the darkest corner of his printing-office, sat Septimus Hardon. The dragon's teeth and their appurtenances lay a...

"Hush!" cried _ma mere_, recovering from her tremor; "but I have another piece. You fool, Jean! are you afraid to be in the dark? Here is the candle, but where are the matches?"...

Softly along the dark passages of the County Arms stole Septimus Hardon, and with stealthy hand he loosened bar and bolt, till the front-door yielded to his touch, and he stood...

That was only a poor wedding that Jean Marais, with a bright spot in each of his sallow cheeks and a wild look in his dark eyes, gazed down upon from the gloomy old gallery of t...

It was about this time that Aunt Fanny, in the large room at Surrey-street, took to complaining of her neck, and wore a narrow strip of flannel beneath the stiff white-muslin ke...

"Hold hard here!" cried a voice from a cab-window; and the driver of as jangling a conveyance as ever rattled over London stones drew up at the corner of Carey-street, Chancery-...

The lark was silent once more; and now from the open door of the first-floor, rising and falling, with a loud and rapid "click, click, click," came the sound of Lucy Grey's sewi...

It never rains but it pours, and the storm fell heavily now upon the head of Doctor Hardon of Somesham. Through the instrumentality of Mr Sterne he was served with the requisite...

The people of Somesham, whom Doctor Hardon regulated as to their internal economy, were of opinion that there was not such another town as theirs in the whole kingdom; and no do...

Always at the call of the poor of his district, the Reverend Arthur Sterne sighed as, slowly descending towards the court, he tried to drive away the words that seemed to ring i...

Septimus Hardon leaped to his feet, as suddenly a key turned and the bedroom-door opened; there was a sharp scuffling noise, as of a swarm of rats leaping hurriedly from the bed...

"Why, if it ain't you, Master Sep, as I thought we were never going to see no more!" cried Mrs Lower to the desolate-looking man outside her snug bar. "But, my; you do look bad,...

Septimus Hardon bore his Christian name from no numerical reason, for he was an only child; but his father, Octavius Hardon, Esquire, of Somesham, thought that, like his own, th...

The public might have been present in force, but they were not; for inquests upon bodies found in Thames' stream are common events, such as find their way into corners of the mo...

With something like the wondering pleasure that must have been felt by the first photographer who applied his developing liquid to a sensitised plate and then saw spring out by...

Octavius Hardon's book was at a standstill, and the world still in the thick darkness of ignorance as regarded political reform upon his basis, for Septimus Hardon was ill, sick...

What were the thoughts of Aunt Fanny as she ushered in Lucy Grey, the bearer of her answer to a note she had received? Strange thoughts, no doubt--thoughts of the time when her...

Lucy's eyes turned very dim as soon as she had passed Mr Sterne, and things wore a strangely blurred aspect. She would have given worlds to have thrown herself upon his breast,...

In one of those vast piles of building a short distance down the main line of a great railway, a strange-looking elderly man, and one whose dress bespeaks the clergyman, are pas...