This visit was but the first of many from Mr. Butson: until after a very few months he came as regularly as Uncle Isaac himself.  He recovered his old appearance a little at a time, one new article of clothing coming after another; but he seemed to have no luck in his quest for a job—or very little.  What small success he found was ever brought to naught by the captiousness—even the rudeness—of those in direction, or their unreasonable exactions in the way of work.  To simple Nan May he seemed the most shamefully ill-used of exemplars.

Johnny and Bessy were less enthusiastic.  Bessy said nothing, but avoided Mr. Butson as much as possible, sitting in the shop when he was in the back parlour.  Johnny went for walks in the evening, and grumbled, wondering why his mother encouraged this stranger—“cadging suppers,” as he uncivilly put it.  Nan May was hurt at the expression, and feared that the workshop was spoiling Johnny’s manners.

News came from Bob Smallpiece that his poor old mother was dead at last, and buried in the high p. 159churchyard where Johnny’s grandfather lay.  Also that Bob would come to London now, for a visit, at the first opportunity.  Now it was a fact that Bob Smallpiece, for a year or two, had been inclined to marry; though it was a thing he might never have thought of if he had seen less of Mrs. May.  But he was a man of practical temperament, making up in his commonsense for a great lack of agility of mind.  There were certain obstacles, he saw—obstacles that must remove of themselves or not at all.  First, his old mother.  It would not seem fair to bring a wife to nurse a bedridden old woman—at anyrate it was scarce an attraction.  More, the old woman herself had a dread of it.  She feared the chance of being thought a burden by a newcomer, and would often beg Bob not to marry till she were gone; sometimes with the assurance that she would not be long now.  Then—to say nothing of old Mr. May—there had been the children, who, familiar as he was with them, afflicted him, in this particular matter alone, with an odd shyness.  Again, when the old man died, the May family must needs come to London, if only that Johnny might go to his trade; while Bob Smallpiece must stay at the forest.  But he was ever patient and philosophical.

Now that some difficulties were gone, another arose.  Nan May, all unaware of his slow designs, was settled in London, with ties of business.  But perhaps, after all, the business was not flourishing—might be a burden p. 160better laid down.  And as to Johnny—he was earning wages of some sort now, and at most his apprenticeship would be out when he was twenty-one.

Bob Smallpiece had reserved one piece of news till he could deliver it in person.  This was that at last he had let the cottage, at three-and-sixpence a week, to a decent woodman and his wife.  And so, wearing a new neckcloth, and with three weeks’ rent in his pocket, Bob Smallpiece appeared in Harbour Lane one spring morning, a vast astonishment of leather and velveteen, such as had never before brought a Blackwall housewife to attention in the midst of her dusting and sweeping.  No name was painted over the shop, but no stranger could pass its red and blue and green without stopping to look; least of all Bob Smallpiece, in quest of the place itself.  Nan May saw him, and ran to the door; and Bessy, with her crutch and her book, met him half-way to the back-parlour, gay and laughing.

Bob regarded the well-filled shop, the neat room, with some mixture of feelings.  Prosperity was excellent in its own way, but it made the new obstacle more formidable.  Further, Mrs. May, though she was pleased to hear that the cottage was let, and grateful enoug............