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STEPHEN ARCHER AND OTHER TALES
By George Macdonald
CONTENTS.
STEPHEN ARCHER
THE GIFTS OF THE CHILD CHRIST
THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS
THE BUTCHER'S BILLS
POET IN A STORM
IF I HAD A FATHER
STEPHEN ARCHER
Stephen Archer was a stationer, bookseller, and newsmonger in one of thesuburbs of London. The newspapers hung in a sort of rack at his door, asif for the convenience of the public to help themselves in passing. Onhis counter lay penny weeklies and books coming out in parts, amongstwhich the _Family Herald_ was in force, and the _London Journal_ notto be found. I had occasion once to try the extent of his stock, for Irequired a good many copies of one of Shakspere's plays--at a penny, ifI could find such. He shook his head, and told me he could not encouragethe sale of such productions. This pleased me; for, although it was oflittle consequence what he thought concerning Shakspere, it was of theutmost import that he should prefer principle to pence. So I loiteredin the shop, looking for something to buy; but there was nothing in theway of literature: his whole stock, as far as I could see, consisted oflittle religious volumes of gay binding and inferior print; he hadnothing even from the Halifax press. He was a good-looking fellow, aboutthirty, with dark eyes, overhanging brows that indicated thought, mouthof character, and no smile. I was interested in him.
I asked if he would mind getting the plays I wanted. He said he wouldrather not. I bade him good morning.
More than a year after, I saw him again. I had passed his shop manytimes, but this morning, I forget why, I went in. I could hardlyrecall the former appearance of the man, so was it swallowed up in anew expression. His face was alive, and his behaviour courteous. Asimilar change had passed upon his stock. There was _Punch_ and _Fun_amongst the papers, and tenpenny Shaksperes on the counter, printed onstraw-paper, with ugly wood-cuts. The former class of publications hadnot vanished, but was mingled with cheap editions of some worthy ofbeing called books.
"I see you have changed your mind since I saw you last," I said.
"You have the advantage of me, sir," he returned. "I did not know youwere a customer."
"Not much of that," I replied; "only in intention. I wanted you to getme some penny Shaksperes, and you would not take the order."
"Oh! I think I remember," he answered, with just a trace of confusion;adding, with a smile, "I'm married now;" and I fancied I could read asort of triumph over his former self.
I laughed, of course--the best expression of sympathy at hand--and,after a little talk, left the shop, resolved to look in again soon.Before a month was over, I had made the acquaintance of his wife too,and between them learned so much of their history as to be able togive the following particulars concerning it.
Stephen Archer was one of the deacons, rather a young one perhaps, ofa dissenting congregation. The chapel was one of the oldest in theneighbourhood, quite triumphant in ugliness, but possessed of a historywhich gave it high rank with those who frequented it. The sacred odourof the names of pastors who had occupied its pulpit, lingered aboutits walls--names unknown beyond its precincts, but starry in the eyesof those whose world lay within its tabernacle. People generally donot know what a power some of these small _conventicles_ are in theeducation of the world. If only as an outlet for the energies of men oflowly education and position, who in connexion with most of the churchesof the Establishment would find no employment, they are of inestimablevalue.
To Stephen Archer, for instance, when I saw him first, his chapel wasthe sole door out of the common world into the infinite. When heentered, as certainly did the awe and the hush of the sacred placeovershadow his spirit as if it had been a gorgeous cathedral-houseborne aloft upon the joined palms of its Gothic arches. The Master istruer than men think, and the power of His presence, as Browning hasso well set forth in his "Christmas Eve," is where two or three aregathered in His name. And inasmuch as Stephen was not a man ofimagination, he had the greater need of the undefined influences ofthe place.
He had been chief in establishing a small mission amongst the poor inthe neighbourhood, with the working of which he occupied the greaterpart of his spare time. I will not venture to assert that his mind waspure from the ambition of gathering from these to swell the flock atthe little chapel; nay, I will not even assert that there never arosea suggestion of the enemy that the pence of these rescued brands mightalleviate the burden upon the heads and shoulders of the poorlyprosperous caryatids of his church; but I do say that Stephen was anhonest man in the main, ever ready to grow honester: and who candemand more?
One evening, as he was putting up the shutters of his window, hisattention was arrested by a shuffling behind him. Glancing round, heset down the shutter, and the next instant boxed a boy's ears, who ranaway howling and mildly excavating his eyeballs, while a young,pale-faced woman, with the largest black eyes he had ever seen,expostulated with him on the proceeding.
"Oh, sir!" she said, "he wasn't troubling you." There was a touch ofindignation in the tone.
"I'm sorry I can't return the compliment," said Stephen, ratherillogically. "If I'd ha' known you liked to have your shins kicked, Imight ha' let the young rascal alone. But you see I didn't know it."
"He's my brother," said the young woman, conclusively.
"The more shame to him," returned Stephen. "If he'd been your husband,now, there might ha' been more harm than good in interferin', 'causehe'd only give it you the worse after; but brothers! Well, I'm sureit's a pity I interfered."
"I don't see the difference," she retorted, still with offence.
"I beg your pardon, then," said Stephen. "I promise you I won'tinterfere next time."
So saying, he turned, took up his shutter, and proceeded to close hisshop. The young woman walked on.
Stephen gave an inward growl or two at the depravity of human nature,and set out to make his usual visits; but before he reached the place,he had begun to doubt whether the old Adam had not overcome him in thematter of boxing the boy's ears; and the following interviews appearedin consequence less satisfactory than usual. Disappointed withhimself, he could not be so hopeful about others.
As he was descending a stair so narrow that it was only just possiblefor two people to pass, he met the same young woman ascending. Glad ofthe opportunity, he stepped aside with his best manners and said:
"I am sorry I offended you this evening. I did not know that the boywas your brother."
"Oh, sir!" she returned--for to one in her position, Stephen Archerwas a gentleman: had he not a shop of his own?--"you didn't hurt himmuch; only I'm so anxious to save him."
"To be sure," returned Stephen, "that is the one thing needful."
"Yes, sir," she rejoined. "I try hard, but boys will be boys."
"There is but one way, you know," said Stephen, following the wordswith a certain formula which I will not repeat.
The girl stared. "I don't know about that," she said. "What I want isto keep him out of prison. Sometimes I think I shan't be able long.Oh, sir! if you be the gentleman that goes about here, couldn't youhelp me? I can't get anything for him to do, and I can't be at home tolook after him."
"What is he about all day, then?"
"The streets," she answered. "I don't know as he's ever done anythinghe oughtn't to, but he came home once in a fright, and that breathlesswith running, that I thought he'd ha' fainted. If I only could get himinto a place!"
"Do you live here?" he asked.
"Yes, sir; I do."
At the moment a half-bestial sound below, accom
panied by uncertainfootsteps, announced the arrival of a drunken bricklayer.
"There's Joe Bradley," she said, in some alarm. "Come into my room,sir, till he's gone up; there's no harm in him when he's sober, but heain't been sober for a week now."
Stephen obeyed; and she, taking a key from her pocket, and unlocking adoor on the landing, led him into a room to which his back-parlour wasa paradise. She offered him the only chair in the room, and took herplace on the edge of the bed, which showed a clean but much-wornpatchwork quilt. Charley slept on the bed, and she on a shake-down inthe corner. The room was not untidy, though the walls and floor werenot clean; indeed there were not in it articles enough to make ituntidy withal.
"Where do you go on Sundays?" asked Stephen.
"Nowheres. I ain't got nobody," she added, with a smile, "to take menowheres."
"What do you do then?"
"I've plenty to do mending of Charley's trousers. You see they're onlyshoddy, and as fast as I patch 'em in one place they're out inanother."
"But you oughtn't to work Sundays."
"I have heard tell of people as say you oughtn't to work of a Sunday;but where's the differ when you've got a brother to look after? Heain't got no mother."
"But you're breaking the fourth commandment; and you know where peoplego that do that. You believe in hell, I suppose."
"I always thought that was a bad word."
"To be sure! But it's where you'll go if you break the Sabbath."
"Oh, sir!" she said, bursting into tears, "I don't care what become ofme if I could only save that boy."
"What do you mean by _saving_ him?"
"Keep him out of prison, to be sure. I shouldn't mind the workusmyself, if I could get him into a place."
_A place_ was her heaven, a prison her hell. Stephen looked at hermore attentively. No one who merely glanced at her could help seeingher eyes first, and no one who regarded them could help thinking hernice-looking at least, all in a shabby cotton dress and black shawl asshe was. It was only the "penury and pine" that kept her from beingbeautiful. Her features were both regular and delicate, with ananxious mystery about the thin tremulous lips, and a beseeching look,like that of an animal, in her fine eyes, hazy with the trouble thathaunted her mouth. Stephen had the good sense not to press the Sabbathquestion, and by degrees drew her story from her.
Her father had been a watchmaker, but, giving way to drink, had been,as far back as she could remember, entirely dependent on her mother,who by charing and jobbing managed to keep the family alive. Sara wasthen the only child, but, within a few months after her father'sdeath, her mother died in giving birth to the boy. With her lastbreath she had commended him to his sister. Sara had brought himup--how she hardly knew. He had been everything to her. The child thather mother had given her was all her thought. Those who start with theidea "that people with nought are naughty," whose eyes are offended byrags, whose ears cannot distinguish between vulgarity and wickedness,and who think the first duty is care for self, must be excused frombelieving that Sara Coulter passed through all that had been _decreed_for her without losing her simplicity and purity. But God is in theback slums as certainly as--perhaps to some eyes more evidentlythan--in Belgravia. That which was the burden of her life--namely, thecare of her brother--was her salvation. After hearing her story, whichhe had to draw from her, because she had no impulse to talk aboutherself, Stephen went home to turn the matter over in his mind.
The next Sunday, after he had had his dinner, he went out into thesame region, and found himself at Sara's door. She was busy over agarment of Charley's, who was sitting on the bed with half a loaf inhis hand. When he recognized Stephen he jumped down, and would haverushed from the room; but changing his mind, possibly because of thecondition of his lower limbs, he turned, and springing into the bed,scrambled under the counterpane, and drew it over his head.
"I am sorry to see you working on Sunday," Stephen said, with anemphasis that referred to their previous conversation.
"You would not have the boy go naked?" she returned, with again atouch of indignation. She had been thinking how easily a man ofStephen's social position could get him a place if he would. Thenrecollecting her manners, she added, "I should get him better clothesif he had a place. Wouldn't you like to get a place now, Charley?"
"Yes," said Charley, from under the counterpane, and began to peep atthe visitor.
He was not an ill-looking boy--only roguish to a degree. His eyes, asblack as his sister's, but only half as big, danced and twinkled withmischief. Archer would have taken him off to his ragged class, buteven of rags he had not at the moment the complement necessary foradmittance. He left them, therefore, with a few commonplaces ofreligious phrase, falling utterly meaningless. But he was not one toconfine his ministrations to words: he was an honest man. Before thenext Sunday it was clear to him that he could do nothing for the soulof Sara until he had taken the weight of her brother off it.
When he called the next Sunday the same vision precisely met hisview. She might have been sitting there ever since, with thosewonderfully-patched trousers in her hands, and the boy beside her,gnawing at his lump of bread. But many a long seam had passedthrough her fingers since then, for she worked at a clothes-shop allthe week with the sewing-machine, whence arose the possibility ofpatching Charley's clothes, for the overseer granted her a cuttingor two now and then.
After a little chat, Stephen put the question:
"If I find a place for Charley, will you go to Providence Chapel nextSunday?"
"I will go _anywhere_ you please, Mr. Archer," she answered, lookingup quickly with a flushed face. She would have accompanied him to anycasino in London just as readily: her sole thought was to keep Charleyout of prison. Her father had been in prison once; to keep hermother's child out of prison was the grand object of her life.
"Well," he resumed, with some hesitation, for he had arrived at theresolution through difficulties, whose fogs yet lingered about him,"if he will be an honest, careful boy, I will take him myself."
"Charley! Charley!" cried Sara, utterly neglectful of the source ofthe benefaction; and rising, she went to the bed and hugged him.
"Don't, Sara!" said Charley, petulantly.
"I don't want girls to squash me. Leave go, I say. You mend mytrousers, and _I_ 'll take care of _my_self."
"The little wretch!" thought Stephen.
Sara returned to her seat, and her needle went almost as fast as hersewing-machine. A glow had arisen now, and rested on her pale cheek:Stephen found himself staring at a kind of transfiguration, back fromthe ghostly to the human. His admiration extended itself to her deftand slender fingers and there brooded until his conscience informedhim that he was actually admiring the breaking of the Sabbath;whereupon he rose. But all the time he was about amongst the rest ofhis people, his thoughts kept wandering back to the desolate room, thethankless boy, and the ministering woman. Before leaving, however, hehad arranged with Sara that she should bring her brother to the shopthe next day.
The awe with which she entered it was not shared by Charley, who wasnever ripe for anything but frolic. Had not Stephen been influenced bya desire to do good, and possibly by another feeling too embryonic fordetection, he would never have dreamed of making an errand boy of awill-o'-the-wisp. As such, however, he was installed, and from thatmoment an anxiety unknown before took possession of Stephen's bosom.He was never at ease, for he never knew what the boy might be about.He would have parted with him the first fortnight, but the idea of theprison had passed from Sara's heart into his, and he saw that to turnthe boy away from his first place would be to accelerate hisgravitation thitherward. He had all the tricks of a newspaper boyindigenous in him. Repeated were the complaints brought to the shop.One time the paper was thrown down the area, and brought into thebreakfast-room defiled with wet. At another it was found on thedoor-step, without the bell having been rung, which could hardly havebeen from forgetfulness, for Charley's delight was to set the bellringing furiously, and the
n wait till the cook appeared, taking goodcare however to leave space between them for a start. Sometimes thepaper was not delivered at all, and Stephen could not help suspectingthat he had sold it in the street. Yet both for his sake and Sara's heendured, and did not even box his ears. The boy hardly seemed to bewicked: the spirit that possessed him was rather a _polter-geist_, asthe Germans would call it, than a demon.
Meantime, the Sunday after Charley's appointment, Archer, seated inhis pew, searched all the chapel for the fulfilment of Sara's part ofthe agreement, namely, her presence. But he could see her nowhere.The fact was, her promise was so easy that she had scarcely thoughtof it after, not suspecting that Stephen laid any stress upon itsfulfilment, and, indeed, not knowing where the chapel was. She hadmanaged to buy a hit of something of the shoddy species, and whileStephen was looking for her in the chapel, she was making a jacket forCharley. Greatly disappointed, and chiefly, I do believe, that she hadnot kept her word, Stephen went in the afternoon to call upon her.
He found her working away as before, and saving time by taking herdinner while she worked, for a piece of bread lay on the table by herelbow, and beside it a little brown sugar to make the bread go down.The sight went to Stephen's heart, for he had just made his dinner offbaked mutton and potatoes, washed down with his half-pint of stout.
"Sara!" he said solemnly, "you promised to come to our chapel, and youhave not kept your word." He never thought that "our chapel" was notthe landmark of the region.
"Oh, Mr. Archer," she answered, "I didn't know as you cared about it.But," she went on, rising and pushing her bread on one side to makeroom for her work, "I'll put on my bonnet directly." Then she checkedherself, and added, "Oh! I beg your pardon, sir--I'm so shabby! Youcouldn't be seen with the likes of me."
It touched Stephen's chivalry--and something deeper than chivalry. Hehad had no intention of walking with her.
"There's no chapel in the afternoon," he said; "but I'll come andfetch you in the evening."
Thus it came about that Sara was seated in Stephen's pew, next toStephen himself, and Stephen felt a strange pleasure unknown before,like that of the shepherd who having brought the stray back to thefold cares little that its wool is torn by the bushes, and it looks aragged and disreputable sheep. It was only Sara's wool that might seemdisreputable, for she was a very good-faced sheep. He found the hymnsfor her, and they shared the same book. He did not know then that Saracould not read a word of them.
The gathered people, the stillness, the gaslights, the solemn ascentof the minister into the pulpit, the hearty singing of thecongregation, doubtless had their effect upon Sara, for she had neverbeen to a chapel and hardly to any place of assembly before. From allamusements, the burden of Charley and her own retiring nature had kepther back.
But she could make nothing of the sermon. She confessed afterwardsthat she did not know she had anything to do with it. Like "theNorthern Farmer," she took it all for the clergyman's business, whichshe amongst the rest had to see done. She did not even wonder whyStephen should have wanted to bring her there. She sat when otherpeople sat, pretended to kneel when other people pretended to kneel,and stood up when other people stood up--still brooding upon Charley'sjacket.
But Archer's feelings were not those he had expected. He had broughther, intending her to be done good to; but before the sermon was overhe wished he had not brought her. He resisted the feeling for a longtime, but at length yielded to it entirely; the object of hissolicitude all the while conscious only of the lighted stillness andthe new barrier between Charley and Newgate. The fact with regard toStephen was that a certain hard _pan_, occasioned by continualploughings to the same depth and no deeper, in the soil of his mind,began this night to be broken up from within, and that through thepresence of a young woman who did not for herself put together twowords of the whole discourse.
The pastor was preaching upon the saying of St. Paul, that he couldwish himself accursed from Christ for his brethren. Great part of hissermon was an attempt to prove that he could not have meant what hiswords implied. For the preacher's mind was so filled with the supposedparamount duty of saving his own soul, that the enthusiasm of theApostle was simply incredible. Listening with that woman by his side,Stephen for the first time grew doubtful of the wisdom of his pastor.Nor could he endure that such should be the first doctrine Sara heardfrom his lips. Thus was he already and grandly repaid for hiskindness; for the presence of a woman who without any consciousreligion was to herself a law of love, brought him so far intosympathy with the mighty soul of St. Paul, that from that moment theblessing of doubt was at work in his, undermining prison walls.
He walked home with Sara almost in silence, for he found it impossibleto impress upon her those parts of the sermon with which he had nofault to find, lest she should retort upon that one point. The arrowswhich Sara escaped, however, could from her ignorance have struck heronly with their feather end.
Things proceeded in much the same fashion for a while. Charley wenthome at night to his sister's lodging, generally more than two hoursafter leaving the shop, but gave her no new ground of complaint. EverySunday evening Sara went to the chapel, taking Charley with her whenshe could persuade him to go; and, in obedience with the supposed wishof Stephen, sat in his pew. He did not go home with her any more for awhile, and indeed visited her but seldom, anxious to avoid scandal,more especially as he was a deacon.
But now that Charley was so far safe, Sara's cheek began to generate alittle of that celestial rosy red which is the blossom of thewoman-plant, although after all it hardly equalled the heart of theblush rose. She grew a little rounder in form too, for she livedrather better now,--buying herself a rasher of bacon twice a week.Hence she began to be in more danger, as any one acquainted with hersurroundings will easily comprehend. But what seemed at first the ruinof her hopes dissipated this danger.
One evening, when she returned from her work, she found Stephen in herroom. She made him the submissive grateful salutation, half courtesy,half bow, with which she always greeted him, and awaited his will.
"I am very sorry to have to tell you, Sara, that your brother--"
She turned white as a shroud, and her great black eyes grew greaterand blacker as she stared in agonized expectancy while Stephenhesitated in search of a better form of communication. Finding none,he blurted out the fact--
"--has robbed me, and run away."
"Don't send him to prison, Mr. Archer," shrieked Sara, and laidherself on the floor at his feet with a grovelling motion, as ifstriving with her mother earth for comfort. There was not a film ofart in this. She had never been to a theatre. The natural urging oflife gave the truest shape to her entreaty. Her posture was the resultof the same feeling which made the nations of old bring theirsacrifices to the altar of a deity who, possibly benevolent in themain, had yet cause to be inimical to them. From the prostrate livingsacrifice arose the one prayer, "Don't send him to prison; don't sendhim to prison!"
Stephen gazed at her in bewildered admiration, half divine and allhuman. A certain consciousness of power had, I confess, a part in hissilence, but the only definite shape this consciousness took was ofbeneficence. Attributing his silence to unwillingness, Sara gothalf-way from the ground--that is, to her knees--and lifted a face ofutter entreaty to the sight of Stephen. I will not say words fail meto describe the intensity of its prayer, for words fail me to describethe commonest phenomenon of nature: all I can is to say, that it madeStephen's heart too large for its confining walls. "Mr. Archer," shesaid, in a voice hollow with emotion, "I will do _anything_ you like.I will be your slave. Don't send Charley to prison."
The words were spoken with a certain strange dignity ofself-abnegation. It is not alone the country people of Cumberland orof Scotland, who in their highest moments are capable of poeticutterance.
An indescribable thrill of conscious delight shot through the frame ofStephen as the woman spoke the words. But the gentleman in himtriumphed. I would have said _the Christian_, for whateve
r there wasin Stephen of the _gentle_ was there in virtue of the _Christian_,only he failed in one point: instead of saying at once, that he had nointention of prosecuting the boy, he pretended, I believe from thesatanic delight in power that possesses every man of us, that he wouldturn it over in his mind. It might have been more dangerous, but itwould have been more divine, if he had lifted the kneeling woman tohis heart, and told her that not for the wealth of an imaginationwould he proceed against her brother. The divinity, however, wastaking its course, both rough-hewing and shaping the ends of the two.
She rose from the ground, sat on the one chair, with her face to thewall, and wept, helplessly, with the added sting, perhaps, of a faintpersonal disappointment. Stephen failed to attract her notice, andleft the room. She started up when she heard the door close, and flewto open it, but was only in time to hear the outer door. She sat downand cried again.
Stephen had gone to find the boy if he might, and bring him to hissister. He ought to have said so, for to permit suffering for the sakeof a joyful surprise is not good. Going home first, he was hardlyseated in his room, to turn over not the matter but the means, when aknock came to the shop-door, the sole entrance, and there were twopolicemen bringing the deserter in a cab. He had been run over in thevery act of decamping with the contents of the till, had lain all butinsensible at the hospital while his broken leg was being set, but, assoon as he came to himself, had gone into such a fury of determinationto return to his master, that the house-surgeon saw that the onlychance for the ungovernable creature was to yield. Perhaps he had somedim idea of restoring the money ere his master should have discoveredits loss. As he was very little, they made a couch for him in the cab,and so sent him.
It would appear that the suffering and the faintness had given hisconscience a chance of being heard. The accident was to Charley whatthe sight of the mountain-peak was to the boy Wordsworth. He wasdelirious when he arrived, and instead of showing any contritiontowards his master, only testified an extravagant joy at finding himagain. Stephen had him taken into the back room, and laid upon his ownbed. One of the policemen fetched the charwoman, and when she arrived,Stephen went to find Sara.
She was sitting almost as he had left her, with a dull, hopeless look.
"I am sorry to say Charley has had an accident," he said.
She started up and clasped her hands.
"He is not in prison?" she panted in a husky voice.
"No; he is at my house. Come and see him. I don't think he is in anydanger, but his leg is broken."
A gleam of joy crossed Sara's countenance. She did not mind the brokenleg, for he was safe from her terror. She put on her bonnet, tied thestrings with trembling hands, and went with Stephen.
"You see God wants to keep him out of prison too," he said, as theywalked along the street.
But to Sara this hardly conveyed an idea. She walked by his side insilence.
"Charley! Charley!" she cried, when she saw him white on the bed,rolling his head from side to side. Charley ordered her away withwords awful to hear, but which from him meant no more than words ofordinary temper in the mouth of the well-nurtured man or woman. Shehad spoiled and indulged him all his life, and now for the first timeshe was nothing to him, while the master who had lectured andrestrained him was everything. When the surgeon wanted to change hisdressings, he would not let him touch them till his master came.Before he was able to leave his bed, he had developed for Stephen aterrier-like attachment. But, after the first feverishness was over,his sister waited upon him.
Stephen got a lodging, and abandoned his back room to the brother andsister. But he had to attend to his shop, and therefore saw much ofboth of them. Finding then to his astonishment that Sara could notread, he gave all his odd moments to her instruction, and her mindbeing at rest about Charley so long as she had him in bed, her spirithad leisure to think of other things.
She learned rapidly. The lesson-book was of course the New Testament;and Stephen soon discovered that Sara's questions, moving his pity atfirst because of the ignorance they displayed, always left himthinking about some point that had never occurred to him before; sothat at length he regarded Sara as a being of superior intelligencewaylaid and obstructed by unfriendly powers upon her path towards thethreshold of the kingdom, while she looked up to him as to one supremein knowledge as in goodness. But she never could understand thepastor. This would have been a great trouble to Stephen, had not hisvanity been flattered by her understanding of himself. He did notconsider that growing love had enlightened his eyes to see into herheart, and enabled him thus to use an ordinary human language for theembodiment of common-sense ideas; whereas the speech of the pastorcontained such an admixture of technicalities as to be unintelligibleto the neophyte.
Stephen was now distressed to find that whereas formerly he hadreceived everything without question that his minister spoke, he nowin general went home in a doubting, questioning mood, begotten ofasking himself what Sara would say. He feared at first that the oldAdam was beginning to get the upper hand of him, and that Satan waslaying snares for his soul. But when he found at the same time thathis conscience was growing more scrupulous concerning his businessaffairs, his hope sprouted afresh.
One day, after Charley had been out for the first time, Sara, with alittle tremor of voice and manner, addressed Stephen thus:--
"I shall take Charley home to-morrow, if you please, Mr. Archer."
"You don't mean to say, Sara, you've been paying for those lodgingsall this time?" half-asked, half-exclaimed Stephen.
"Yes, Mr. Archer. We, must have somewhere to go to. It ain't easy toget a room at any moment, now them railways is everywheres."
"But I hope as how you're comfortable where you are, Sara?"
"Yes, Mr. Archer. But what am I to do for all your kindness?"
"You can pay me all in a lump, if you like, Sara. Only you don't oweme nothing."
Her colour came and went. She was not used to men. She could not tellwhat he would have her understand, and could not help trembling.
"What do you mean, Mr. Archer?" she faltered out.
"I mean you can give me yourself, Sara, and that'll clear all scores."
"But, Mr. Archer--you've been a-teaching of me good things--You_don't_ mean to marry me!" exclaimed Sara, bursting into tears.
"Of course I do, Sara. Don't cry about it. I won't if you don't like."
This is how Stephen came to change his mind about his stock in trade.