Albert Langly found himself compelled to search for a cheaper room. The thin young man bitterly regretted that good money had to be wasted on food, clothes and rent. A person cannot live without food; Langly had tried it, not as an economical experiment, but largely through forgetfulness, and he found, to his astonishment, that hunger actually forced itself upon his attention, after a sufficient lapse of time. The changeable English climate, not to mention the regulations of that moral body the police force, compelled him to cover himself; and a room he needed mainly to keep his stacks of music dry. The church of St. Martyrs-in-the-East afforded a very good living to its rector and a very poor one for its organist, although if people were paid according to professional efficiency in this world, the salaries of clergyman and musician might have been reversed. Those who entered the church door came, not to hear the sermon, but to listen to the music.

Langly never applied for more remuneration, because deep down in his musical soul he knew he was already taking advantage of the generosity of the church authorities, and he lived in constant fear that some day they would discover this and righteously dismiss him. To be allowed to play on that splendid instrument, erected at the cost of an unbelievable amount of money, was a privilege which he felt he ought to pay for, if he were the honest man the deacons thought him. He tried to soothe his troubled conscience, by telling it that he would refuse to take money were it not that sheet music was so dear, even when bought from the man who gave the largest discount in London, to whose shop Langly tramped miles once a week; but thus the guilty have ever endeavoured to lull the inward monitor, well knowing, while they did so, the sophistry of their excuses. The consciousness of deceit told on Langly’s manner; he cringed before the rector and those in authority. Never did one of the kindly but deluded men accost their organist without causing a timorous fear to spring up in his heart that the hour of his dismissal had arrived. Yet, let moralists say what they will, the wicked do prosper sometimes on this earth when they shouldn’t, while the innocent suffer for the misdeeds done by others. There was the case of Belcher, for example, and although it must in justice be admitted that Belcher’s hard luck caused the organist many twinges of conscience, still of what avail are twinges of conscience when the harm is wrought? If, in our selfishness, we bring disaster on a fellow-creature, after-regret can scarcely be called reparation.

Belcher was the hard-working industrious man who pumped the organ in St. Martyrs, and, besides labouring during the regular service, it was also his duty to attend when the organist wished to practice the selections which afterwards delighted the congregation. This was Belcher’s grievance. Langly had no “mussy,” as the overworked pumper told his sympathizing comrades at the “Rose and Crown.” He would rather follow the vestry-cart all day with a shovel, would Belcher, than suffer the slavery he was called upon to endure by the unthinking organist, who never considered that bending the back to a lever was harder work than crooking the fingers to the keys. Besides, Langly could sit down to his labour, such as it was, while Belcher couldn’t. Naturally the put-upon man complained, and Langly at once admitted the justice of the complaint, at the same time exhibiting a craven fear that a rumour of his unjustifiable conduct might reach the ears of the church authorities. The honest Belcher now regretted that he had borne his burden so long, for the reprehensible organist immediately offered to compound with the blower by paying him something extra each week, if he would say nothing about the additional labour. It was Belcher’s misfortune rather than his fault that mathematical computation was not one of his acquirements, and he failed to appreciate the fact that there was a limit to the musician’s income; a limit very speedily reached. He was an ill-used man and he knew it, so he struck often for higher pay and got it, up to the point where Langly insisted that there was not enough left to keep body and soul together, not to speak of the purchase of music. Belcher yearned for the tail of the vestry-cart, and threatened to complain to the rector; which at last he did, not mentioning, however, that he had received extra remuneration, because he did not wish to exhibit the organist’s culpability in all its repulsiveness. He told the rector that he would rather accompany the vestry-cart in its rounds than accompany an organist who had no “mussy” on a “pore” man. He was always ready to pump a reasonable quantity of air, but if an organist knew his trade so badly that he needed to practice so much, it was hard that the man at the lever should bear the brunt of his incompetence. The rector thanked Belcher for his musical criticism, and said he would see about it.

While the virtuous Belcher took his walks abroad with his chin in the air, as befits one who has done his duty, the transgressor crept along by-ways and scarcely dared to enter the silent church. He dodged the rector as long as he could, but was at length run to earth. The kindly old man put his hand on the culprit’s shoulder, and said:

“You have been overworking Belcher, I hear.”

“I shall be more thoughtful in future, sir,” murmured the nervous organist in excuse. “I’m afraid I’ve been playing too much, but it is a difficult art——”

“Of course it is,” interrupted the clergyman. “I have made arrangements to satisfy the ambition of Belcher, which appears to tend in the direction of a vestry-cart, and we are putting in a hydraulic blower which we should have put in years ago. You will find it a great convenience in your practice, Mr. Langly, for it is always ready and never complains.”

The organist tried to thank the rector, but his throat seemed not at his command for other effort than a gulp or two. The good man smiled at the grotesque twistings of Langly’s mouth and the rapid winking of his eyelids; then the organist turned abruptly and walked away, tortured afterwards with the fear that the rector might have thought him rude and ungrateful; but the old man knew the musician much better than the musician knew himself.

After that, when Langly chanced upon the indignant and gravely wronged Belcher, at the tail of his oft-mentioned but entirely unexpected cart, the young man shrank from the encounter, and felt that inward uneasiness which is termed a troubled conscience.

“Call that Christianity!” Belcher would say to his mate when their rounds took them near St. Martyrs,—“a-puttin’ a squirtin’ water-pump in there, to tyke th’ bread out o’ a pore man’s mouth, an’ a-cuttin’ down o’ ’is livin’ wyge! Yus, an’ the lawr a-forcin’ us to support the Church too.”

But Belcher was really of a forgiving spirit, and should not be judged by his harsh language towards the Establishment which, he was under the impression, rigourous legal enactment compelled him to subsidize; for he so far overlooked Langly’s conduct as to call upon him occasionally, and accept a few pence as conscience-money.

“I don’t blime ’im,” said Belcher magnanimously, over his pot of beer, “as much as I do the mean old duffer wot preaches there. ’E put me on the cart.”

Langly, as has been said, found it necessary to secure cheaper lodgings, and this was his own fault as much as it was the fault of his limited income. A London landlady in the more impoverished districts carries on a constant fight against circumstances. Her tenants pay her as seldom and as little as they can; sometimes they disappear, and she loses her money; while if they stay, there are no chances of extracting extras, those elastic exactions which often waft a West End boarding-house keeper to affluence. Terms are close and invariably inclusive. The organist’s conduct towards his numerous and successive landladies admits of no defence. These good women, when he had taken his departure, spoke bitterly of his sneaky and deceptive ways, as indeed they had just cause to do. On first arriving at a new place, he was so apologetic and anxious not to give any trouble; so evidently a person who did not really live in bustling, elbowing London, but in some dreamy mental world of his own, that his good hostess, merely as an experiment and entirely without prejudice, as the legal man puts it, tentatively placed on his bill for the week some trifling item, that, strictly speaking, was merely placed there to be taken off again, if complaint were made, or allowed to stand if overlooked. Of course, under these circumstances, the landlady was in expectation of a row, during which epithets reflecting upon her financial probity might be hurled at her, when she, with voluble excuses for her unfortunate mistake, would correct the error and assure the lodger that such a thing would not occur again. After a few essays of this kind, all perfectly just and proper in a commercial country, and in fact the only means of discovering to what extent the lodger could be depended upon as an asset, life would flow on with that calm serenity which adds so much to the comfort and enjoyment of a furnished apartment in the Borough or a palace overlooking the Park.

But Langly never took a straightforward course with his landladies. Instead of finding fault at the proper time, he meekly said nothing and paid the bills as long as he was able—bills which mounted higher and higher each week. Thus the deluded woman had no chance, as she could not be expected to know when she had reached the limit of his weekly income. At last the organist would take his bundle of music under his arm, and would sneak away like a thief in the night, to search for a cheaper abode, after leaving a week’s money in lieu of notice, wrapped in a piece of paper, in a conspicuous place, for he had never had the courage to face a landlady and baldly tell her he was going.

In Rose Garden Court there was more than one family that might be likened to an accordion, because of the facility with which it could be compressed or extended. The Scimmins household could occupy the three rooms it rented in the court, or it could get along with two, or even one if need be. The spare space was sub-let whenever opportunity offered, and here Langly found lodging that had at least the merit of cheapness. The policeman at the entrance of the court looked suspiciously after the new-comer, and resolved to keep an eye on him. The organist had a habit of muttering truculently to himself as he walked the streets, and his nervous hands were never a moment at rest, the long slim fingers playing imaginary keys or chords, inaudible outside of his own musical imagination.

When the already suspicious policeman at the entrance of the court saw the musician come out, clawing the empty air with the two forefingers of either hand crooked like talons, a fearful frown on his brow, and an ominous muttering in his throat, the officer said to himself:

“There goes a hanarchist, if ever there was one,” not knowing that the poor little man was merely pulling the stops of a mythical organ, immense in size and heavenly in tone. The police always looked askance at Langly when he moved into a new locality, until they learned that he was the organist at St. Martyrs-in-the-East.

One night, shortly after he took the back room two flights up at No. 3, Langly came down the common stairway, and paused in amaze at the landing opposite Braunt’s door. He heard some one within, slowly and fearfully murdering Chopin’s Funeral March, part first. The sound made him writhe, and he crouched by the door, his fingers mechanically drumming against the panel, repressing with difficulty a desire to cry out against the profanation of a harmony that seemed sacred to him. The drone stopped suddenly, and next instant the door was jerked open, causing the amazed listener to stumble into the room, where, as it seemed to him, a giant pounced down, clutched his shoulders, and flung him in a heap on the floor by the opposite wall. Then, kicking the door shut, the giant, with fists clenched and face distorted with rage, towered over the prostrate man.

“You miserable sneaking scoundrel!” cried Braunt. “So that’s why you took a room with the Scimminses—to ferret and spy on me. I’ve seen you crawling up these stairs, afraid to look any honest man in the face. Because I took no strike pay Gibbons wants to know how I live, does he? I’m up to his tricks. You’re Gibbons’s spy, and he has sent you to live with that other sneak, Scimmins. Scimmins himself was afraid, for he knows already the weight of my hand. Now,” continued Braunt, rolling up his sleeves, “I’ll serve you as I did Scimmins. I’ll throw you over the banisters, and you can report that to Gibbons, and tell him to come himself next time, and I’ll break every bone in his body.”

Jessie clung to her father, begging him in tears not to hurt the poor man. Braunt shook her off, but not unkindly.

“Sit thee down, Jessie, lass, and don’t worrit me. I’ll but drop the bag o’ bones on the stairs, and serve him right for a sneak.”

Langly, encouraged by his antagonist’s change of tone in speaking to the girl, ventured to falter forth:

“I assure you, sir——”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me, you hound,” cried Braunt, turning fiercely upon him, “and don’t dare to deny you are one of Gibbons’s spies. I caught you at it, remember.”

“I’ll deny nothing, if it displeases you; but I never heard of Gibbons in my life, and I’m only a poor organist. I stopped at the door on hearing the harmonium. For no other reason, I assure you. I know I oughtn’t to have done it, and I suppose I am a sneak. I’ll never do it again, never, if you will excuse me this time.”

There was something so abject in the musician’s manner that Braunt’s resentment was increased rather than diminished by the appeal. He had a big man’s contempt for anything small and cringing.

“Oh, you’re an organist, are you? Likely story! Organists don’t live in Garden Court. But we’ll see, we’ll see. Get up.”

Langly gathered himself together, and rose unsteadily to his feet. Every movement he made augmented the other’s suspicion.

“Now,” said Braunt, with the definite air of a man who has his opponent in a corner, “sit down at the harmonium and play. You’re an organist, remember.”

“Yes,” protested Langly, “but I don’t know that I can play on that instrument at all. I play a church organ.”

“An organ’s an organ, whether it is in church or out. If you can play the one, you can play the other.”

The young man hesitated, and was nearly lost. Braunt’s fingers itched to get at him, and probably only the presence of the girl restrained him so far.

“Have you any music?” asked Langly.

“No, we haven’t. She plays by ear.”

“Will you allow me to go up-stairs and bring some sheet music?”

This was a little too transparent.

“Now, by God!” cried Braunt, bringing his fist down on the table. “Stand there chattering another minute, and I’ll break thy neck down the stair. Sit thee down, Jessie, an’ don’t interfere. The man plays or he doesn’t. I knew he was a liar, an’ he quakes there because it’s to be proven. Now, coward, the organ or the stairs—make thy choice quickly.”

The driven musician reluctantly took the chair before the instrument. He had played on the harmonium in his early days, and knew it was harsh and reedy at the best. But under his gentle touch the spirit of all the harmonies seemed to rise from it, and fill the squalid room. Braunt stood for a moment with fallen jaw, his hands hanging limply by his sides; then he sank into his arm-chair. Jessie gazed steadfastly, with large pathetic eyes, at their guest, who seemed himself transformed, all the lines of dismay and apprehension smoothed away from his face, replaced by an absorbed ecstacy, oblivious to every surrounding. He played harmony after harmony, one apparently suggesting and melting into another, until at last a minor chord carried the music into the solemn rhythm of Chopin’s march; then the organ, like a sentient creature, began to sob and wail for the dead. The girl’s eyes, never moving from the wizard of the keys, filled with unshed tears, and her father buried his face in his hands.

When at last the organist’s magic fingers slipped from the keys, and the exultant light faded from his face as the dying music merged into silence, Braunt sprang to his feet.

“Curse me for a brutish clown!” he cried. “To think that I mishandled thee, lad, an’ thou playest like an angel. I never heard music before.”

He laid his huge hand on the other’s shoulder gently and kindly, although the youth, hardly yet awake from his dream, timidly shrank from the touch. “Forgive me, lad? I misdoubt I hurt thee.”

“No, no; it is all nothing. So you like the music?”

“The music! I shall never forget it; never. That march rings in my head all day. The whole world seems tramping to it.”

The young man for the first time looked up at him, the light of brotherhood in his eyes.

“I feel it, too,” he said, “that there is nothing around us but good music. It smooths away the ruder sounds of earth, or uses them as undertones—as—as a background. I sometimes fancy that the gates of heaven are left ajar, and we—a few of us—are allowed to listen, to compensate us for any trouble we have, or to show us the triviality of everything else.”

The young man’s thin face flushed in confused shame at finding himself talking thus to another man, although what he said was merely the substance of many a former soliloquy. With a hasty apologetic glance at the girl, who regarded him like one in a trance, with wide unwinking eyes, Langly continued hurriedly:

“The march is a difficult one and should not be attempted except after many lessons. I shall be pleased to teach your daughter, if you will let me. She has a correct ear.”

Braunt shook his head.

“We have no money for music lessons,” he said.

“I have very little myself. I am poor, and therefore need none,” said the organist, as if that were a logical reason. “The poor should help the poor. If they don’t, who else will? The poor have always been kind to me.” He thought of his many landladies, and how they had robbed themselves to sustain him, as they had often admitted, little thinking he would desert them one by one. “Aye, and the rich too,” he added, remembering the hydraulic motor in the church, and of the continued endurance of the authorities with their organist.

“Well, lad,” said Braunt, with a sigh, “come in when you can, and if nowt else, you’ll be sure of a hearty northern welcome.”