very ill; and it is a pity he did not send you to Uttoxeter in his
stead. You are a great boy now, and would rejoice, I am sure, to do
something for your poor father, who has done so much for you."

The lad made no reply. But again his imagination set to work and
conjured up another picture of poor Michael Johnson. He was standing in
the hot sunshine of the market-place, and looking so weary, sick, and
disconsolate, that the eyes of all the crowd were drawn to him. "Had
this old man no son," the people would say among themselves, "who might
have taken his place at the bookstall while the father kept his bed?"
And perhaps, but this was a terrible thought for Sam!--perhaps his
father would faint away and fall down in the marketplace, with his gray
hair in the dust and his venerable face as deathlike as that of a
corpse. And there would be the bystanders gazing earnestly at Mr.
Johnson and whispering, "Is he dead? Is he dead?"

And Sam shuddered as he repeated to himself, "Is he dead?"

"O, I have been a cruel son!" thought he, within his own heart. "God
forgive me! God forgive me!"

But God could not yet forgive him; for he was not truly penitent. Had
he been so, he would have hastened away that very moment to Uttoxeter,
and have fallen at his father's feet, even in the midst of the crowded
market-place. There he would have confessed his fault, and besought Mr.
Johnson to go home and leave the rest of the day's work to him. But
such was Sam's pride and natural stubbornness that he could not bring
himself to this humiliation. Yet he ought to have done so, for his own
sake, for his father's sake, and for God's sake.