The Life of Fred Archer 37 
or something to take home to his mother. Sarah had a relative 
who had been a servant, and she and the man she married were 
sent to Botany Bay for stealing something. I remember my 
mother telling me what an excitement it caused in Prestbury 
when their children — two of them — came to visit their mother's 
native village. She, though she had become quite prosperous, 
was not allowed to come back to England. Her son and 
daughter who came to Prestbury were very flourishing too, and 
though I am not old enough to remember it myself, mother 
would often tell us the tales these people told of the life in 
Australia, 
" There was only one wheel-chair in the village and no 
flys until father started his posting business, for he was 
very enterprising, and he thought that one wheel-chair was 
not enough for Prestbury to go about in. We bought tv/o or 
three flys, and as they were very nice and he kept good horses 
he soon made a very good thing out of it. But the fly-pro- 
prietors by Pittville Gates were very angry about it ; they did 
not like it at all. 
" We went to school in Cheltenham, for one Miss Hughes 
(from the school where mother used to go) had married a Mr. 
Williams, and she and her sister had left Prestbury and started 
another school in Pittville. As my grandfather had helped Mrs. 
Williams and Miss Hughes to start their school in Prestbury 
they were always grateful to him, and after his death they were 
glad to take my sister and me, as they had been to take my 
mother. But when the people from the other inn at Prestbury 
wanted to send their daughters there, Mrs. Williams said 
she did not care to take them. They said, ' Well, but 
the Archers go to your school ! ' Mrs. Williams replied that she 
knew the Archers well, and that made a difference. Mother 
would send the old wheel-chair man to fetch us home if it rained. 
We used to beg him to let us have the front down, but he always 
refused, saying, ' Now, what would your mother say if you got 
wet ? ' and we were shut in, in a kind of glass case, with a 
