His bereavement possibly saved Sidney from a young-manhood of foolishness and worse.  In the upper world a youth may ’sow his wild oats’ and have done with it; in the nether, ‘to have your fling’ is almost necessarily to fall among criminals.  The death was sudden; it affected the lad profoundly, and filled him with a remorse which was to influence the whole of his life.  Mr. Roach, a thick-skinned and rather thick-headed person, did not spare to remind his apprentice of the most painful things wherewith the latter had to reproach himself.  Sidney bore it, from this day beginning a course of self-discipline of which not many are capable at any age, and very few indeed at seventeen.  Still, there had never been any sympathy between him and his uncle, and before very long the young man saw his way to live under another roof and find work with a new employer.

It was just after leaving his uncle’s house that Sidney came to know John Hewett; the circumstances which fostered their friendship were such as threw strong light on the characters of both.  Sidney had taken a room in Islington, and two rooms on the floor beneath him were tenanted by a man who was a widower and had two children.  In those days, our young friend found much satisfaction in spending his Sunday evenings on Clerkenwell Green, where fervent, if ungrammatical, oratory was to be heard, and participation in debate was open to all whom the spirit moved.  One whom the spirit did very frequently move was Sidney’s fellow-lodger; he had no gift of expression whatever, but his brief, stammering protests against this or that social wrong had such an honest, indeed such a pathetic sound, that Sidney took an opportunity of walking home with him and converting neighbourship into friendly acquaintance.  John Hewett gave the young man an account of his life.  He had begun as a lath-render; later he had got into cabinet-making, started a business on his own account, and failed.  A brother of his, who was a builder’s foreman, then found employment for him in general carpentry on some new houses; but John quarrelled with his brother, and after many difficulties fell to the making of packing-cases; that was his work at present, and with much discontent he pursued it.  John was curiously frank in owning all the faults in himself which had helped to make his career so unsatisfactory.  He confessed that he had an uncertain temper, that he soon became impatient with work ‘which led to nothing,’ that he was tempted out of his prudence by anything which seemed to offer ‘a better start.’  With all these admissions, he maintained that he did well to be angry.  It was wrong that life should be so hard; so much should not be required of a man.  In body he was not strong; the weariness of interminable days over-tried him and excited his mind to vain discontent.  His wife was the only one who could ever keep him cheerful under his lot, and his wedded life had lasted but six years; now there was his lad Bob and his little girl Clara to think of, and it only made him more miserable to look forward and see them going through hardships like his own.  Things were wrong somehow, and it seemed to him that ’if only we could have universal suffrage—­’