Calm, uneventful were the years which succeeded Arthur’s establishment under Mr. Tollady’s roof. Uneventful outwardly, that is; for as regards those unseen circumstances, those silent conquests, defeats, and revolutions which succeed one another in the hidden depths of an expanding mind, these years from twelve to eighteen were fruitful to a degree of which we can only convey a partial idea by dwelling on a few of the visible results. Samuel Tollady had had no occasion to regret the attention he had paid to Arthur’s intellectual training. The boy from the first picked up knowledge with an almost incredible facility; so quickly, indeed, that his master began before long to fear that his own knowledge would soon be insufficient to guide the boy’s mind in those paths which it pursued with such eager delight. The printer was a most indulgent master, permitting to Arthur every practicable moment of leisure time, and not unfrequently himself per. forming tasks which were the boy’s proper work, in order that the latter might enjoy the fruits of an extra hour spent over the book he happened to be reading. Indeed it would be scarcely correct to speak of the two in the mutual relationship of master and servant, for a very few months sufficed to create between them a feeling of mutual affection, which, as time went on, was strengthened on Arthur’s side by growing respect, at times almost veneration, and on that of the old man by genuine admiration of, and pride in, the powers which he saw developing beneath his fostering care. By when Arthur had reached his fifteenth year, an actual son of his own could scarcely have been more to Mr. Tollady than he was; and if ever Arthur endeavoured to recall to his mind the aspect of that father whom he had so bitterly mourned years ago, he was quite unable to dissociate the dim memory of his features from the look of those grave, kind eyes which so often rested upon him during the day with affectionate interest.

About this time Mr. Tollady began to give Arthur his first lessons in the art of printing, on which occasion he addressed to him a few words in a more serious strain than he had hitherto ever made use of to the boy. It was shortly after one New Year’s Day, as the two were sitting in the back parlour after supper, listening to a furious storm which seemed ever and anon to shake the foundations of the house. The printer had been unusually sad that day, and as Arthur glanced up at him occasionally from gazing thoughtfully at the live coals, he thought he had never seen him looking so old.

“Arthur,” said Mr. Tollady, suddenly, “do you think I am a rich man?”

“Not — not exactly rich,” began Arthur, after some slight hesitation. “But — but, indeed, I have never thought about it at all.”

“I dare say you never have, for you are still in the happy years, Arthur, when the thoughts run but little on riches or poverty. Should you be surprised if I told you that I was a poor man — a very poor man?”

“I should be surprised if you told me you were very poor, sir.”

“You would?” repeated the other, smiling. “Would you be sorry to hear it?”

“Very sorry, for I am sure you do not deserve to be poor, sir,” replied the boy with a proud firmness of tone beyond his years.

There was silence for a few moments, when the printer began again in a grave tone.

“I am indeed very poor, Arthur; so poor, that even the slightest expenses beyond our mere necessaries are a great burden to me. Do you remember how many newspapers you used to take out each morning when first you came to me?”

“I think about fifty, sir.”

“Just so. And how many do you take out now?”

“Twenty-three, sir.”

“Just so. Can you see why I ask you that, Arthur?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the boy, sinking his head and speaking sadly.

“The papers used to be the best part of my business,” pursued the old man; “but it was to the office that I looked for the greater part of my income. But that, too, has fallen off sadly during the last few years. Do you notice that James has not been here since Christmas?”

James was the printer whom Mr. Tollady had long employed in his office. Arthur replied in the affirmative.

“I have been obliged to do without him, though it grieved me sincerely to part with him. I had no longer business enough to keep him at work, Arthur. I can manage it all myself now-a-days, with your help.”

“I am very sorry to hear it, sir.”

There was again silence for several minutes, when Arthur suddenly broke out.

“Then why do you let me be a burden to you, sir? I’m sure I don’t anything like earn my food and the money you give me; I have thought so for a long time, and wished to speak to you about it, but I was afraid you might be offended. Pray let me find some work somewhere! I am sure I could earn fifteen shillings a week, sir, and — and that would be a little help — though not much.”

He added the last words blushingly, as he met Mr. Tollady’s eye fixed upon him with its kindly smile.

“Don’t be ashamed of your generous nature, Arthur,” replied the latter. “No doubt you could earn what you say, and more; but it would be very much against my wish. I fear I have done wrong in telling you all this; you will distress yourself about it. No; I said that all expenses beyond those necessary for our support were a burden; but I am glad to say that there is still no difficulty in providing what we absolutely need, and, I trust, never will be. This is the reason I spoke to you about such things. You are now beginning to learn a business, one that has supported me for the greater part of my life, and which, if you master it thoroughly, will always stand you in good stead, for a first-class printer can always find employment. Now the very best way you can help me, Arthur, is to become a good compositor as soon as possible. Then you will be able to take James’s place, and who knows but what you may bring us good luck. I am afraid I am getting too old to push ahead, as I ought to.”

“You shall have no reason to complain of me, sir,” replied Arthur. “I shall not sleep till morning for eagerness to begin.”

“I wish you could bestow on me a little of your life and energy, Arthur,” said Mr. Tollady, with a sigh. “It often rather grieves me to be able to provide no better field for their exercise than this musty old shop and office. But keep well in mind what I have said to you, my boy. I teach you to become a printer because I think that in so doing I shall best fulfil my duty towards you; I shall have given you knowledge by which you can always live. Do not suppose that I think you capable of nothing higher; had I the means I would spare nothing to give you the best advantages in whatever profession you should choose; but you see how it is with me. Have you done any more at your drawing today?”

Arthur started to his feet with a joyful look, and ran to a corner of the room where a large and much-worn portfolio was leaning upright against the wall. This he carried to the table, and then laid it open. It contained a large number of drawings, on paper of various shapes and sizes, but at the top lay one on which Arthur was at present engaged.

For he had not forgotten the old fondness which had first been awakened by the mendicant lodger at Mike Rumball’s. Very shortly after he had begun to live at Mr. Tollady’s he had recommenced his rude attempts on any scraps of paper which he found lying about, and this time, when he was at length discovered, he met with every encouragement to cultivate his taste. The printer was himself not without some facility in the use of the pencil; or at all events such had once been the case; and he now brought out several old sketch-books which he had filled years ago, and showed them to the delighted boy. Henceforth Arthur divided his leisure time pretty impartially between his books and his drawings, and with Mr. Tollady’s occasional suggestions to aid his natural instincts, he made perceptible progress in the art. With what scorn would he now have viewed that portrait of the parrot which he had laboured at so earnestly, and which he had offered with so much pride to his goddess, little Lizzie Clinkscales! For, indeed, he began to acquire not a little facility in copying from pictures, or from objects which the printer set before him as models. One copy of a cut in an old Illustrated London News Mr. Tollady had liked well enough to have framed, and it now hung over the parlour mantelpiece — a group of horses with legs a trifle too tong, and manes of astonishing luxuriance. The drawing which he now brought forth from the portfolio was a more ambitious attempt. It was a copy in pencil of Giotto’s portrait of Dante, which he had found engraved in one of Mr. Tollady’s books. The profoundly sad, and somewhat weird expression of the face was very finely caught, and expressed in a few bold lines which gave considerable promise for the future skill of the hand which drew them.

Mr. Tollady sighed as he looked at the drawing. He was wishing that he had it in his power to provide adequate instruction for such exceptional talent. As he held it up in his hand, Arthur had left the room, and in a moment returned, holding something out of sight behind his back. He came and stood before Mr. Tollady with a smile on his face.

“What have you got there, my boy?” asked the latter, answering the smile.

“Something that I am half afraid to show you, sir,” replied Arthur. “I know it is very bad, but it is only a first trial. You won’t make fun of it?”

“You know it is not my habit to make fun of anything well meant, Arthur.”

The boy drew his hand from behind his back and brought forward a small piece of paper on which he had made his first attempt in colours. It was a copy from nature of a sprig of holly, thickly clustered with berries.

“Ha! Water-colours!” exclaimed Mr. Tollady. “Bravo, Arthur! very good, upon my word, very good! When did you do it?”

“This morning, sir.”

“Very well. Persevere, Arthur, and you will do something worth putting in the window yet. Where did you find your colours?”

“I bought a blue, yellow, and red for twopence, sir.”

“Why did you choose these three?” asked Mr. Tollady, smiling.

“I read the article on ‘Colours’ in your Cyclop?dia, sir, and found that those were the three out of which all the others were made.”

“Very well, Arthur. Try one or two more little things like this, and we will see whether we can find you a box of colours somewhere or other.”

So the days went on. Arthur had worked away at case, and was making evident progress in the art of printing. Not that be took any pleasure in the work for its own sake; being merely manual dexterity he very soon grew disgusted with it. But he never failed to fulfil his hours destined to this employment conscientiously, for he knew that in so doing he was affording pleasure to his master, and had, moreover, the expectation of being very shortly absolutely useful to him.

He had grown to be a tall, handsome boy, with blue eyes full of light, and a countenance open and glad. His surroundings were by no means of a joyous character, and yet such is the natural ardour of youth, and especially of youth animated by the celestial gift of genius, that his life at this time was, as it were, a continual hymn of gladness, the joyful exuberance of a lofty soul breathed upwards, under unseen impulses, to the eternal source of life and light which we feel, but know not. The miserable little outcast of Whitecross Street had, thanks to the strivings of his inborn spirit, assisted by the never-ceasing teaching of his friend and guardian, developed into a youth of rich promise, his mind already stored with no despicable harvest of knowledge, his heart throbbing with generous sympathy with all that is most beautiful in the world of nature or Imagination. As he grew older he felt within himself the stirrings of a double life, the one, due to his natural gifts, comprehending all the instincts, the hopes, the ambitions of the artist; the other, originating in the outward circumstances of his childhood, and not a little in the instruction directly afforded him by Mr. Tollady, or indirectly caught from the conversation of such men as Mark Challenger and John Pether, which urged him on to the labours of the philanthropist, showing him in the terribly distinct reflex of his own imagination the ever-multiplying miseries of the poor amongst whom he lived, and painting in entrancing hues the glories of such a life as his master’s, self-denying even to a fault, bent solely on the one object of making the world less wretched, even though he died in the effort. These two distinct impulses seemed to grow within Arthur Golding’s mind with equal force and rigidity; he experienced neither of them any the less for being more and more convinced, as he grew in self-knowledge, that their coexistence was incompatible with the perfection of either. To which of the two should he wholly devote himself? As he drew on towards his eighteenth year he spent many and many an hour in vain efforts to decide. Already he began to feel that this would be the struggle of his life, that upon the solution of this inward problem would depend the happiness of his existence.

At times he was wholly the artist, especially when he had been working long at one of his drawings, or when he had been reading one of his favourite books on art, to procure him which Mr. Tollady had subscribed to a circulating library. His favourites were Cunningham’s “Lives of British Artists,” and Vasari’s “Lives of the Painters.” These he read and reread with an enthusiasm which set at defiance the weariness of nature and made night tributary to the supply of hours of which the day had too few.

The second half of his nature grew strongest at those times when he took his weekly walk in Mr. Tollady’s company. Sunday evening was invariably spent thus, when, that is to say, the weather was not so intolerably bad as altogether to forbid outdoor exercise. Starting from the shop about four o’clock, they would walk in a direction already agreed upon, and, by fetching a lengthy compass, regain home towards nine. On such occasions Mr. Tollady was more talkative than at other times. The exercise appeared to do him good, and not unfrequently in his flow of talk he would make mention of scenes and events which led Arthur to think that in his early days the printer must have seen a great deal of the world. But on his putting questions on this subject, or indeed on any other in the least personal to his companion, the result invariably was to turn the conversation immediately into other channels. Arthur soon observed this, and carefully avoided touching upon such points, but he nevertheless nourished a great curiosity to know more of Mr. Tollady’s life, feeling sure that it must be interesting far beyond ordinary life stories.

One of these walks Arthur ever after remembered, partly on account of the energy and freedom with which Mr. Tollady that evening gave utterance to his opinions, partly from an event which followed upon the walk, and which we shall have shortly to relate. The direction they had taken was City-wards. After crossing Smithfield Market, they passed along Little Britain, and over Aldersgate Street into Barbican. When in Smithfield, Mr. Tollady said, looking round with a peculiar smile —

“You remember the associations connected with this place, Arthur don’t you?”

“The burning of the martyrs, you mean!”

“Just so. When you read history, don’t fall into the error of skipping over those parts affecting religion as too uninteresting to hold your attention. To my mind, Arthur, history of religious beliefs has always been at once the saddest and the most interesting of studies. It is nothing less than the struggle of the human mind from the black depths of ignorance and brutish fear up towards that glorious heritage of freedom to which, I cannot but believe, it is one day destined to attain. You can afford to smile at those writers who would have you reckon religious creeds among the influences which tend to exalt humanity. Never believe it! These faiths, one and all, great and small, from the most grovelling superstition of the cannibal to the purest phase of devotion nurtured in the mind of a Christian, trust me, they are nothing but remnants of the primeval darkness, clinging to man as he toils laboriously upwards, clinging in spite of all his efforts to shake them off. And woe to such as hug the darkness to their bosom!”

“Can you, then, feel no admiration for those men who suffered such fearful agonies in the cause they considered holy?”

“Admiration — no, Arthur; profound pity, if you like. Why should I admire a man because he knits up his bodily frame to the patient endurance of suffering, and all for the sake of error? Shake off that prejudice, I beg of you. Admiration! It is only the body that is in question, and how can I spare admiration for the body? As well ask me to admire the porter who carries easily upon his head a weight which would crush me or you to the ground. That, too, is a wonderful exertion of bodily force. You will say, perhaps: ‘Never mind whether their belief was right or wrong; admire it because it was so unshakable.’ I tell you, nonsense! There is no abstract merit in that. Call it pig-headedness, and will you admire it then?”

“But,” interrupted Arthur, “you do not actually despise them for the part they took?”

“Do not misunderstand me,” pursued the other, eagerly. “I argue merely against the absurd claim for admiration and reverence. Despise them! No, certainly not. I despise absolutely no man, and simply because I esteem all alike as involuntary agents in the hands of a great power which most call Providence, but which I prefer to call the inexplicable spirit of the world. History pursues its path, using us as its agents for the working out of prescribed ends. To think that we men can modify those ends is the delusion of ignorance or of madness. Why then should I despise the martyrs? They performed their part in history, and could not otherwise. But do not ask me to actually admire them. Admiration I can only spare for those whom fate has ordained as instruments to advance humanity. Those who are so unfortunate as to represent the retarding forces in the life of ............