“What work does your wife do?”
“She has none to do yet. She can cook, sew, weave, and spin.”
“I’ll bear it in mind, if I hear of any for her.”
“Thank you,” said Stephen; and dropping the halfpenny into his purse, he secured the loaves in his girdle, and went back to the small screened-off corner of the garret which at present he called home.
It was not long before the worthy baker found Stephen so useful that he raised his wages even to the extravagant sum of threepence a day. His wife, too, had occasional work for Ermine; and the thread she spun was so fine and even, and the web she wove so regular and free from blemishes, that one employer spoke of her to another, until she had as much work as she could do. Not many months elapsed before they were able to leave the garret where they had first found refuge, and take a little house in Ivy Lane; and only a few years were over when Stephen was himself a master baker and pastiller (or confectioner), Ermine presiding over the lighter dainties, which she was able to vary by sundry German dishes not usually obtainable in London, while he was renowned through the City for the superior quality of his bread. Odinel, the fat baker, who always remained his friend, loved to point a moral by Stephen’s case in lecturing his journeymen.
“Why, do but look at him,” he was wont to say; “when he came here, eight years ago, he scarcely knew wassel bread from cocket, and had never seen a fish pie save to eat. Now he has one of the best shops in Bread Street, and four journeymen under him. And how was it done, think you? There was neither bribery nor favour in it. Just by being honest, cleanly, and punctual, thorough in all he undertook, and putting heart and hands into the work. Every one of you can do as well as he did, if you only bestir yourselves and bring your will to it. Depend upon it, lads, ‘I will’ can do a deal of work. ‘I can’ is very well, but if ‘I will’ does not help him, ‘I can’ will not put many pennies in his pocket. ‘I can’—‘I ought’—‘I will’—those are the three good fairies that do a man’s work for him: and the man that starts work without them is like to turn out but a sorry fellow.”
It was for Ermine’s sake, that he might retain a hiding place for her if necessary, that Stephen continued to keep up the house in Ivy Lane. The ordinary custom was for a tradesman to live over or behind his shop. The excuse given out to the world was that Stephen and his wife, being country people, did not fancy being close mewed up in city streets; and between Ivy Lane and the fresh country green and air, there were only a few lanes and the city walls.
Those eight years passed quietly and peacefully to Stephen and Ermine. A small family—five in number—grew up around them, and Gib purred tranquilly on the hearth. They found new friends in London, and thanked God that He had chosen their inheritance for them, and had set their feet in a large room.
At that time, and for long afterwards, each trade kept by itself to its own street or district. The mercers and haberdashers lived in West Chepe or Cheapside, which Stephen had to go down every day. One morning, at the end of those eight years, he noticed that a shop long empty had been reopened, and over it hung a newly-painted signboard, with a nun’s head. As Stephen passed, a woman came to the door to hang up some goods, and they exchanged a good look at each other.
“I wonder who it is you are like!” said Stephen to himself.