Friarswood Post Office

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Friarswood Post Office

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To make up for the good day, this one was a very bad one with poor
Alfred. There was thunder in the air, and if the sultry heat weighed
heavily even on the healthy, no wonder it made him faint and
exhausted, disposed to self-pity, and terribly impatient and fretful.
He was provoked by Ellen's moving about the room, and more provoked
by Harold's whistling as he cleaned out the stable; and on the other
hand, Harold was petulant at being checked, and vowed there was no
living in the house with Alfred making such a work. Moreover, Alfred
was restless, and wanted something done for him every moment,
interrupting Ellen's work, and calling his mother up from her baking
so often for trifles, that she hardly knew how to get through it.

The doctor, Mr. Blunt, came, and he too felt the heat, having spent
hours in going his rounds in the closeness and dust. He was a rough
man, and his temper did not always hold out; he told Alfred sharply
that he would have no whining, and when the boy moaned and winced
more than he would have done on a good day, he punished him by not
trying to be tender-handed. When Mrs. King said, perhaps a little
lengthily, how much the boy had suffered that morning, the doctor,
wearied out, no doubt, with people's complaints, cut her short rather
rudely, 'Ay, ay, my good woman, I know all that.'

'And can nothing be done, Sir, when he feels so sinking and weak?'

'Sinking--he must feel sinking--nothing to do but to bear it,' said
Mr. Blunt gruffly, as he prepared to go. 'Don't keep me now;' and as
Alfred held up his hand, and made some complaint of the tightness of
the bandage, he answered impatiently, 'I've no time for that, my lad;
keep still, and be glad you've nothing worse to complain of.'

'Then you don't think he is getting any better, Sir?' said Mrs. King,
keeping close to him. 'I thought he was yesterday, and I wanted to
speak to you. My oldest daughter thought if we could get him away to
the sea, and--'

'That's all nonsense,' said the hurried doctor; 'don't you spend your
money in that way; I tell you nothing ever will do him any good.'

This was at the bottom of the stairs; and Mr. Blunt was off. He was
the cleverest doctor for a good way round, and it was not easy to
Mrs. King to secure his attendance. Her savings and Matilda's were
likely to melt away sadly in paying him, since she was just too well
off to be doctored at the parish expense, and he was really a good
and upright man, though wanting in softness of manner when he was
hurried and teased. If Mrs. King had known that he was in haste to
get to a child with a bad burn, she might have thought him less
unkind in the short ungentle way in which he dashed her hopes. Alas!
there had never been much hope; but she feared that Alfred might have
heard, and have been shocked.

Ellen heard plainly enough, and her heart sank. She tried to look at
her brother's face, but he had put it out of sight, and spoke not a
word; and she only could sit wondering what was the real drift of the
cruel words, and whether the doctor meant to give no hope of
recovery, or only to dissuade her mother from vainly trying change of
air. Her once bright brother always thus! It was a sad thought, and
yet she would have been glad to know he would be no worse; and
Ellen's heart was praying with all her might that he might have his
health and happiness restored to him, and that her mother might be
spared this bitter sorrow.

Alfred said nothing about the doctor's visit, but he could eat no
dinner, and did not think this so much the fault of his sickly taste,
as of his mother's potato-pie; he could not think why she should be
so cross as to make that thing, when she knew he hated it; and as to
poor Harold, Alfred would hardly let him speak or stir, without
ordering Ellen down to tell him not to make such a row.

Ellen was thankful when Harold was fairly hunted out of the house and
garden, even though he betook himself to the meadow, where Paul
Blackthorn was lying on the grass with his feet kicking in the air,
and shewing the skin through his torn shoes. The two lads squatted
down on the grass with their heads together. Who could tell what
mischief that runaway might be putting into Harold's head, and all
because Alfred could not bear with him enough for him to be happy at
home?

They were so much engrossed, that it needed a rough call from the
farmer to send Paul back to his work when the dinner-hour was over;
whereupon Harold came slowly to his digging again.

Hotter and hotter did it grow, and the grey dull clouds began to gain
a yellow lurid light in the distance; there were low growlings of
thunder far away, and Ellen left her work unfinished, and forgot how
hot she was herself in toiling to fan Alfred, so as to keep him in
some little degree cooler, while the more he strove with the heat,
the more oppressed and miserable he grew.

Poor fellow! his wretchedness was not so much the heat, as the dim
perception of Mr. Blunt's hasty words; he had not heard them fully--
he dared not inquire what they had been, and he could not endure to
face them--yet the echo of 'nothing will ever do him good,' seemed to
ring like a knell in his ears every time he turned his weary head.
Nothing do him good! Nothing! Always these four walls, that little
bed, this wasting weary lassitude, this gnawing, throbbing pain, no
pony, no running, no shouting, no sense of vigour and health ever
again, and perhaps--that terrible perhaps, which made Alfred's very
flesh quail, he would not think of; and to drive it away, he found
some fresh toil to require of the sister who could not content him,
toil as she would.

Slowly the afternoon hours rolled on, one after the other, and Alfred
had just been in a pet with the clock for striking four when he
wanted it to be five, when the sky grew darker, and one or two heavy
drops of rain came plashing down on the thirsty earth.

'The storm is coming at last, and now it will be cooler,' said Ellen,
looking out from the window. 'Dear me!' she added, there stopping
short.

'What?' asked Alfred. 'What are you gaping at?'

'I declare!' cried Ellen, 'it's the new clergyman! It is Mr. Cope,
and he is coming up to the wicket!'

Alfred turned his head with a peevish sound; he was in the dreary
mood to resent whatever took off attention from him for a moment.

'A very pleasant-looking gentleman,' commented Ellen, 'and so young!
He does not look older than Charles Lawrence! I wonder whether he is
coming in, or if it is only to post a letter. Oh! there he is,
talking to Mother! There!'

A vivid flash of lightning came over the room at that moment and made
them all pause till it was followed up by the deep rumble of the
thunder, and then down rushed the rain, plashing and leaping up
again, bringing out the delicious scent from the earth, and seeming
in one moment to breathe refreshment and relief on the sick boy. His
brow was already clearing, as he listened to his mother's tones of
welcome, as she was evidently asking the stranger to sit down and
wait for the storm to be over, and the cheerful voice that replied to
her. He did not scold Ellen for, as usual, making things neat; and
whereas, five minutes sooner, he would have hated the notion of any
one coming near him, he now only hoped that his mother would bring
Mr. Cope up; and presently he heard the well-known creak of the
stairs under a manly foot, and his mother's voice saying something
about 'a great sufferer, Sir.'

Then came in sight his mother's white cap, and behind her one of the
most cheerful lively faces that Alfred had ever beheld. The new
Curate looked very little more than a boy, with a nice round fresh
rosy face, and curly brown hair, and a quick joyous eye, and regular
white teeth when he smiled that merry good-humoured smile. Indeed,
he was as young as a deacon could be, and he looked younger. He
knocked his tall head against the top of the low doorway as he came
into the room, and answered Mrs. King's apologies with a pleasant
laugh. Ellen knew her mother would like him the better for his
height, for no one since the handsome coachman himself had had to
bend his head to get into the room. Alfred liked the looks of him
the first moment, and by way of salutation put up one of his weary,
white, blue-veined hands to pull his damp forelock; but Mr. Cope,
nodding in answer to Ellen's curtsey, took hold of his hand at once,
and softening the cheery voice that was so pleasant to hear, said,
'Well, my boy, I hope we shall be good friends. And what's your
name?'

'Alfred King, Sir,' was the answer. It really was quite a pleasure
not to begin with the old weary subject of being pitied for his
illness.

'King Alfred!' said Mr. Cope. 'I met King Harold yesterday. I've
got into royal company, it seems!'

Alfred smiled, it was said so drolly; but his mother, who felt a
little as if she were being laughed at, said, 'Why, Sir, my brother's
name was Alfred; and as to Harold, it was to please Miss Jane's
little sister that died--she was quite a little girl then, Sir, but
so clever, and she would have him named out of her History of
England.'

'Did Miss Selby give you those flowers?' said Mr. Cope, admiring the
rose and geranium in the cup on the table.

'Yes, Sir;' and Mrs. King launched out in the praises of Miss Jane
and of my Lady, an inexhaustible subject which did not leave Alfred
much time to speak, till Mrs. King, seeing the groom from the Park
coming with the letter-bag through the rain, asked Mr. Cope to excuse
her, and went down-stairs.

'Well, Alfred, I think you are a lucky boy,' he said. 'I was
comparing you with a lad I once knew of, who got his spine injured,
and is laid up in a little narrow garret, in a back street, with no
one to speak to all day. I don't know what he would not give for a
sister, and a window like this, and a Miss Jane.'

Alfred smiled, and said, 'Please, Sir, how old is he?'

'About sixteen; a nice stout lad he was, as ever I knew, till his
accident; I often used to meet him going about with his master, and
thought it was a pleasure to meet such a good-humoured face.'

Alfred ventured to ask his trade, and was told he was being brought
up to wait on his father, who was a bricklayer, but that a ladder had
fallen with him as he was going up with a heavy load, and he had been
taken at once to the hospital. The house on which he was employed
belonged to a friend of Mr. Cope, and all in the power of this
gentleman had been done for him, but that was not much, for it was
one of the families that no one can serve; the father drank, and the
mother was forced to be out charing all day, and was so rough a
woman, that she could hardly be much comfort to poor Jem when she was
at home.

Alfred was quite taken up with the history by this time, and kept
looking at Mr. Cope, as if he would eat it up with his eager eyes.
Ellen asked compassionately who did for the poor boy all day.

'His mother runs in at dinner-time, if she is not at work too far
off, and he has a jug of water and a bit of bread where he can reach
them; the door is open generally, so that he can call to some of the
other lodgers, but though the house is as full as a bee-hive, often
nobody hears him. I believe his great friend is a little school-
girl, who comes and sits by him, and reads to him if she can; but she
is generally at school, or else minding the children.'

'It must be very lonely,' said Alfred, perceiving for the first time
that there could be people worse off than himself; 'but has he no
books to read?'

'He was so irregularly sent to school, that he could not read to
himself, even if his corner were not so dark, and the window so
dingy. My friend gave him a Bible, but he could not get on with it;
and his mother, I am sorry to say, pawned it.'

Ellen and Alfred both cried out as if they had never heard of
anything so shocking.

'It was grievous,' said Mr. Cope; 'but the poor things did not know
the value, and when there was scarcely a morsel of bread in the
house, there was cause enough for not judging them hardly, but I
don't think Jem would allow it now. He got some of his little
friend's easy Scripture lessons and the like, in large print, which
he croons over as he lies there alone, till one feels sure that they
are working into his heart. The people in the house say that though
he has been ill these three years, he has never spoken an ill-
tempered word; and if any one pities him, he answers, "It is the
Lord," and seems to wish for no change. He lies there between dozing
and dreaming and praying, and always seems content.'

'Does he think he shall get well?' said Alfred, who had been
listening earnestly.

'Oh no; there is no chance of that; it is an injury past cure. But I
suppose that while he bears the Will of God so patiently here, his
Heavenly Father makes it up to him in peacefulness of heart now, and
the hope of what is to come hereafter.'

Alfred made no answer, but his eyes shewed that he was thinking; and
Mr. Cope rose, and looked out of window, as a gleam of sunshine,
while the dark cloud lifted up from the north-west, made the trees
and fields glow with intense green against the deep grey of the sky,
darker than ever from the contrast. Ellen stood up, and Alfred
exclaimed, 'Oh Sir, please come again soon!'

'Very soon,' said Mr. Cope good-humouredly; 'but you've not got rid
of me yet, the rain is pretty hard still, and I see the beggarmen
dancing all down the garden-walk.'

Alfred and Ellen smiled to hear their mother's old word for the drops
splashing up again; and Mr. Cope went on:

'The garden looks very much refreshed by this beautiful shower. It
is in fine order. Is it the other monarch's charge?'

'Harold's, Sir,' said Ellen. 'Yes, he takes a great pride in it, and
so did Alfred when he was well.'

'Ah, I dare say; and it must be pleasant to you to see your brother
working in it now. I see him under that shed, and who is that lad
with him? They seem to have some good joke together.'

'Oh,' said Ellen, 'Harold likes company, you see, Sir, and will take
up with anybody. I wish you could be so good as to speak to him,
Sir, for lads of that age don't mind women folk, you see, Sir.'

'What? I hope his majesty does not like bad company?' said Mr. Cope,
not at all that he thought lightly of such an evil, but it was his
way to speak in that droll manner, especially as Ellen's voice was a
little bit peevish.

'Nobody knows no harm of the chap,' said Alfred, provoked at Ellen
for what he thought unkindness in setting the clergyman at once on
his brother; but Ellen was the more displeased, and exclaimed:

'Nor nobody knows no good. He's a young tramper that hired with
Farmer Shepherd yesterday, a regular runaway and reprobate, just out
of prison, most likely.'

'Well, I hope not so bad as that,' said Mr. Cope, 'he's not a bad-
looking boy; but I dare say you are anxious about your brother. It
must be dull for him, to have his companion laid up;--and by the
looks of him, I dare say his spirits are sometimes too much for you,'
he added, turning to Alfred.

'He does make a terrible racket sometimes,' said Alfred.

'Ay, and I dare say you will try to bear with it, and not drive him
out to seek dangerous company,' said Mr. Cope; at which Alfred
blushed a little, as he remembered the morning, and that he had never
thought of this danger.

Mr. Cope added, 'I think I shall go and talk to those two merry
fellows; I must not tire you, my lad, but I will soon come here
again;' and he took leave.

Heartily did Ellen exclaim, 'Well, that is a nice gentleman!' and as
heartily did Alfred reply. He felt as if a new light had come in on
his life, and Mr. Cope had not said one word about patience.

Ellen expected Mr. Cope to come back and warn her mother against Paul
Blackthorn, but she only saw him stand talking to the two lads till
he made them both grin again, and then as the rain was over, he
walked away; Paul went back to his turnips, and Harold came
thundering up-stairs in his great shoes. Alfred was cheerful, and
did not mind him now; but Ellen did, and scolded him for the quantity
of dirt he was bringing up with him from the moist garden, which was
all one steam of sweet smells, as the sun drew up the vapour after
the rain.

'If you were coming in, you'd better have come out of the rain, not
stood idling there with that good-for-nothing lad. The new minister
said he would be after you if you were taking up with bad company.'

'Who told you I was with bad company?' said Harold.

'Why, I could see it! I hope he rebuked you both.'

'He asked us if we could play at cricket--and he asked the pony's
name,' said Harold, 'if that's what you call rebuking us!'

'And what did he say to that boy?'

'Oh! he told him he heard he was a stranger here, like himself, and
asked how long he'd been here, and where he came from.'

'And what did he say?'

'He said he was from Upperscote Union--come out because he was big
enough to keep himself, and come to look for work,' said Harold.
'He's a right good chap, I'll tell you, and I'll bring him up to see
Alfy one of these days!'

'Bring up that dirty boy! I should like to see you!' cried Ellen,
making SUCH a face. 'I don't believe a word of his coming out of the
Union. I'm sure he's run away out of gaol, by the look of him!'

'Ellen--Harold--come down to your tea!' called Mrs. King.

So they went down; and presently, while Mrs. King was gone up to give
Alfred his tea, there came Mrs. Shepherd bustling across, with her
black silk apron thrown over her cap with the crimson gauze ribbons.
She wanted a bit of tape, and if there were none in the shop, Harold
must match it in Elbury when he took the letters.

Ellen was rather familiar with Mrs. Shepherd, because she made her
gowns, and they had some talk about the new clergyman. Mrs. Shepherd
did not care for clergymen much; if she had done so, she might not
have been so hard with her labourers. She was always afraid of their
asking her to subscribe to something or other, so she gave it as her
opinion, that she should never think it worth while to listen to such
a very young man as that, and she hoped he would not stay; and then
she said, 'So your brother was taking up with that come-by-chance
lad, I saw. Did he make anything out of him?'

'He fancies him more than I like, or Mother either,' said Ellen. 'He
says he's out of Upperscote Union; but he's a thorough impudent one,
and owns he's no father nor mother, nor nothing belonging to him. I
think it is a deal more likely that he is run away from some
reformatory, or prison.'

'That's just what I said to the farmer!' said Mrs. Shepherd. 'I said
he was out of some place of that sort. I'm sure it's a sin for the
gentlemen to be setting up such places, raising the county rates, and
pampering up a set of young rogues to let loose on us. Ay! ay! I'll
warrant he's a runaway thief! I told the farmer he'd take him to his
sorrow, but you see he is short of hands just now, and the men are so
set up and grabbing, I don't know how farmers is to live.'

So Mrs. Shepherd went away grumbling, instead of being thankful for
the beautiful crop of hay, safely housed, before the thunder shower
which had saved the turnips from the fly.

Ellen might have doubted whether she had done right in helping to
give the boy a bad name, but just then in came the ostler from the
Tankard with some letters.

'Here!' he said, 'here's one from one of the gentlemen lodging here
fishing, to Cayenne. You'll please to see how much there is to pay.'

Ellen looked at her Postal Guide, but she was quite at a fault, and
she called up-stairs to Alfred to ask if he knew where she should
look for Cayenne. He was rather fond of maps, and knew a good deal
of geography for a boy of his age, but he knew nothing about this
place, and she was just thinking of sending back the letter, to ask
the gentleman where it was, when a voice said:

'Try Guiana, or else South America.'

She looked up, and there were Paul's dirty face and dirtier elbows,
leaning over the half-door of the shop.

'Why, how do you know?' she said, starting back.

'I learnt at school, Cayenne, capital of French Guiana.' Sure enough
Cayenne had Guiana to it in her list, and the price was found out.

But when this learned geographer advanced into the shop, and asked
for a loaf, what a hand and what a sleeve did he stretch out! Ellen
scarcely liked to touch his money, and felt all her disgust revive.
But, for all that, and for all her fear of Harold's running into
mischief, what business had she to set it about that the stranger was
an escaped convict?

Meanwhile, Alfred had plenty of food for dreaming over his fellow
sufferer. It really seemed to quiet him to think of another in the
same case, and how many questions he longed to have asked Mr. Cope!
He wanted to know whether it came easier to Jem to be patient than to
himself; whether he suffered as much wearing pain; whether he grieved
over the last hope of using his limbs; and above all, the question he
knew he never could bear to ask, whether Jem had the dread of death
to scare his thoughts, though never confessed to himself.

He longed for Mr. Cope's next visit, and felt strongly drawn towards
that thought of Jem, yet ashamed to think of himself as so much less
patient and submissive; so little able to take comfort in what seemed
to soothe Jem, that it was the Lord's doing. Could Jem think he had
been a wicked boy, and take it as punishment?

CHAPTER IV--PAUL BLACKTHORN

'I say,' cried Harold, running up into his brother's room, as soon as
he had put away the pony, 'do you know whether Paul is gone?'

'It is always Paul, Paul!' exclaimed Ellen; 'I'm sure I hope he is.'

'But why do you think he would be?' asked Alfred.

'Oh, didn't you hear? He knows no more than a baby about anything,
and so he turned the cows into Darnel meadow, and never put the
hurdle to stop the gap--never thinking they could get down the bank;
so the farmer found them in the barley, and if he did not run out
against him downright shameful--though Paul up and told him the
truth, that 'twas nobody else that did it.'

'What, and turned him off?'

'Well, that's what I want to know,' said Harold, going on with his
tea. 'Paul said to me he didn't know how he could stand the like of
that--and yet he didn't like to be off--he'd taken a fancy to the
place, you see, and there's me, and there's old Caesar--and so he
said he wouldn't go unless the farmer sent him off when he came to be
paid this evening--and old Skinflint has got him so cheap, I don't
think he will.'

'For shame, Harold; don't call names!'

'Well, there he is,' said Alfred, pointing into the farmyard, towards
the hay-loft door. This was over the cow-house in the gable end; and
in the dark opening sat Paul, his feet on the top step of the ladder,
and Caesar, the yard-dog, lying by his side, his white paws hanging
down over the edge, his sharp white muzzle and grey prick ears turned
towards his friend, and his eyes casting such appealing looks, that
he was getting more of the hunch of bread than probably Paul could
well spare.

'How has he ever got the dog up the ladder?' cried Harold.

'Well!' said Mrs. King, 'I declare he looks like a picture I have
seen--'

'Well, to be sure! who would go for to draw a picture of the like of
that!' exclaimed Ellen, pausing as she put on her things to carry
home some work.

'It was a picture of a Spanish beggar-boy,' said Mrs. King; 'and the
housekeeper at Castlefort used to say that the old lord--that's Lady
Jane's brother--had given six hundred pounds for it.'

Ellen set out on her walk with a sound of wonder quite beyond words.
Six hundred pounds for a picture like Paul Blackthorn! She did not
know that so poor and feeble are man's attempts to imitate the daily
forms and colourings fresh from the Divine Hand, that a likeness of
the very commonest sight, if represented with something of its true
spirit and life, wins a strange value, especially if the work of the
great master-artists of many years ago.

And even the painter Murillo himself, though he might pleasantly
recall on his canvas the notion of the bright-eyed, olive-tinted lad,
resting after the toil of the day, could never have rendered the free
lazy smile on his face, nor the gleam of the dog's wistful eyes and
quiver of its eager ears, far less the glow of setting sunlight that
shed over all that warm, clear, ruddy light, so full of rest and
cheerfulness, beautifying, as it hid, so many common things: the
thatched roof of the barn, the crested hayrick close beside it; the
waggons, all red and blue, that had brought it home, and were led to
rest, the horses drooping their meek heads as they cooled their feet
among the weed in the dark pond;--the ducks moving, with low
contented quacks and quickly-wagging tails, in one long single file
to their evening foraging in the dewy meadows; the spruce younger
poultry pecking over the yard, staying up a little later than their
elders to enjoy a few leavings in peace, free from the persecutions
of the cross old king of the dung-hill;--all this left in shade,
while the ruddy light had mounted to the roofs, gave brilliance to
every round tuft of moss, and gleamed on the sober foliage of the old
spreading walnut tree.

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