Sewell promised to buy his wood there, put the card
respectfully into his pocket, and followed the manager
downstairs, and through the basement to the kitchen.
He arrived just as Lemuel was about to lift a trayful
of clean soup-bowls, to carry it upstairs. After
a glance at the minister, he stood still with dropped
eyes.
Sewell did not know in what form to greet the boy
on whom he had unwillingly brought so much evil, and
he found the greater difficulty in deciding as he
saw Lemuel’s face hardening against him.
“Barker!” he said at last. “I’m
very glad to find you—I have been very
anxious to find you.”
Lemuel made no sign of sympathy, but stood still in
his long check apron, with his sleeves rolled up to
his elbow, and the minister was obliged to humble
himself still further to this figure of lowly obstinacy.
“I should like to speak with you. Can I
speak with you a few moments?”
The manager politely stepped into the storeroom, and
affected to employ himself there, leaving Lemuel and
the minister alone together.
Sewell lost no time. “I want you to go
home, Barker. I feel that I am wholly to blame,
and greatly to blame, for your coming to Boston with
the expectation that brought you; and that I am indirectly
responsible for all the trouble that has befallen you
since you came. I want to be the means of your
getting home, in any way you can let me.”
This was a very different way of talking from the
smooth superiority of address which the minister had
used with him the other day at his own house.
Lemuel was not insensible to the atonement offered
him, and it was not from sulky stubbornness that he
continued silent, and left the minister to explore
the causes of his reticence unaided.
“I will go home with you, if you like,”
pursued the minister, though his mind misgave him
that this was an extreme which Mrs. Sewell would not
have justified him in. “I will go with you,
and explain all the circumstances to your friends,
in case there should be any misunderstanding—though
in that event I should have to ask you to be my guest
till Monday.” Here the unhappy man laid
hold of the sheep, which could not bring him greater
condemnation than the lamb.
“I guess they won’t know anything about
it,” said Lemuel, with whatever intention.
It seemed hardened indifference to the minister, and
he felt it his disagreeable duty to say, “I
am afraid they will. I read of it in the newspaper
this morning, and I’m afraid that an exaggerated
report of your misfortunes will reach Willoughby Pastures,
and alarm your family.”
A faint pallor came over the boy’s face, and
he stood again in his impenetrable, rustic silence.
The voice that finally spoke from, it said, “I
guess I don’t want to go home, then.”
“You must go home!” said the minister,
with more of imploring than imperiousness in his command.
“What will they make of your prolonged absence?”
