Friarswood Post Office

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

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As to Dick Royston, to find that he would change away his Bible for a
pair of shoes, made Mrs. King doubly concerned that he should be a
good deal thrown in Harold's way. There are many people who neglect
their Bibles, and do not read them; but this may be from
thoughtlessness or press of care, and is not like the wilful breaking
with good, that it is to part with the Holy Scripture, save under the
most dire necessity; and Dick was far from being in real want, nor
was he ignorant, like Mr. Cope's poor Jem, for he had been to school,
and could read well; but he was one of those many lads, who, alas!
are everywhere to be found, who break loose from all restraint as
soon as they can maintain themselves. They do their work pretty
well, and are tolerably honest; but for the rest--alas! they seem to
live without God. Prayers and Church they have left behind, as
belonging to school-days; and in all their strength and health, their
days of toil, their evenings of rude diversion, their Sundays of
morning sleep, noonday basking in the sun, evening cricket, they have
little more notion of anything concerning their souls than the horses
they drive. If ever a fear comes over them, it seems a long long way
off, a whole life-time before them; they are awkward, and in dread of
one another's jeers and remarks; and if they ever wish to be better,
they cast it from them by fancying that time must steady them when
they have had their bit of fun, or that something will come from
somewhere to change them all at once, and make it easy to them to be
good--as if they were not making it harder each moment.

This sort of lad had been utterly let alone till Mr. Cope came; and
Lady Jane and the school-master felt it was dreary work to train up
nice lads in the school, only to see them run riot, and forget all
good as soon as they thought themselves their own masters.

Mr. Cope was anxious to do the best he could for them, and the
Confirmation made a good opportunity; but the boys did not like to be
interfered with--it made them shy to be spoken to; and they liked
lounging about much better than having to poke into that mind of
theirs, which they carried somewhere about them, but did not like to
stir up. They had no notion of going to school again--which no one
wanted them to do--nor to church, because it was like little boys;
and they wouldn't be obliged.

So Mr. Cope made little way with them; a few who had better parents
came regularly to him, but others went off when they found it too
much trouble, and behaved worse than ever by way of shewing they did
not care. This folly had in some degree taken possession of Harold;
and though he could not be as bad as were some of the others, he was
fast growing impatient of restraint, and worried and angry, as if any
word of good advice affronted him. Driven from home by the fear of
disturbing Alfred, he was left the more to the company of boys who
made him ashamed of being ordered by his mother; and there was a
jaunty careless style about all his ways of talking and moving, that
shewed there was something wrong about him--he scorned Ellen, and was
as saucy as he dared even to his mother; and though Mr. Cope found
him better instructed than most of his scholars, he saw him quite as
idle, as restless at church, and as ready to whisper and grin at
improper times, as many who had never been trained like him.

One August Sunday afternoon, Mrs. King was with Alfred while Ellen
was at church. He was lying on his couch, very uncomfortable and
fretful, when to the surprise of both, a knock was heard at the door.
Mrs. King looked out of the window, and a smart, hard-looking,
pigeon's-neck silk bonnet at once nodded to her, and a voice said,
'I've come over to see you, Cousin King, if you'll come down and let
me in. I knew I should find you at home.'

'Betsey Hardman!' exclaimed Alfred, in dismay; 'you won't let her
come up here, Mother?'

'Not if I can help it,' said Mrs. King, sighing. If there were a
thing she disliked above all others, it was Sunday visiting.

'You must help it, Mother,' said Alfred, in his most pettish tones.
'I won't have her here, worrying with her voice like a hen cackling.
Say you won't let her come her!'

'Very well,' said Mrs. King, in doubt of her own powers, and in haste
to be decently civil.

'Say you won't,' repeated Alfred. 'Gadding about of a Sunday, and
leaving her old sick mother--more shame for her! Promise, Mother!'

He had nearly begun to cry at his mother's unkindness in running
down-stairs without making the promise, for, in fact, Mrs. King had
too much conscience to gain present quiet for any one by promises she
might be forced to break; and Betsey Hardman was only too well known.

Her mother was an aunt of Alfred's father, an old decrepit widow,
nearly bed-ridden, but pretty well to do, by being maintained chiefly
by her daughter, who made a good thing of taking in washing in the
suburbs of Elbury, and always had a girl or two under her. She had
neither had the education, nor the good training in service, that had
fallen to Mrs. King's lot; and her way of life did not lead to
softening her tongue or temper. Ellen called her vulgar, and though
that is not a nice word to use, she was coarse in her ways of talking
and thinking, loud-voiced, and unmannerly, although meaning to be
very good-natured.

Alfred lay in fear of her step, ten times harder than Harold's in his
most boisterous mood, coming clamp clamp! up the stairs; and her
shrill voice--the same tone in which she bawled to her deaf mother,
and hallooed to her girls when they were hanging out the clothes in
the high wind--coming pitying him--ay, and perhaps her whole weight
lumbering down on the couch beside him, shaking every joint in his
body! His mother's ways, learnt in the Selby nursery, had made him
more tender, and more easily fretted by such things, than most
cottage lads, who would have been used to them, and never have
thought of not liking to have every neighbour who chose running up
into the room, and talking without regard to subject or tone.

He listened in a fright to the latch of the door, and the coming in.
Betsey's voice came up, through every chink of the boards, whatever
she did herself; and he could hear every word of her greeting, as she
said how it was such a fine day, she said to Mother she would take a
holiday, and come and see Cousin King and the poor lad: it must be
mighty dull for him, moped up there.

Stump! stump! Was she coming? His mother was answering something
too soft for him to hear.

'What, is he asleep?'

'O Mother, must you speak the truth?'

'Bless me! I should have thought a little cheerful company was good
for him. Do you leave him quite alone? Well--' and there was a
frightful noise of the foot of the heaviest chair on the floor.
'I'll sit down and wait a bit! Is he so very fractious, then?'

What was his mother saying? Alfred clenched his fist, and grinned
anger at Betsey with closed teeth. There was the tiresome old word,
'Low--ay, so's my mother; but you should rise his spirits with
company, you see; that's why I came over; as soon as ever I heard
that there wasn't no hope of him, says I to Mother--'

What? What was that she had heard? There was his mother, probably
trying to restrain her voice, for it came up now just loud enough to
make it most distressing to try to catch the words, which sounded
like something pitying. 'Ay, ay--just like his poor father; when
they be decliny, it will come out one ways or another; and says I to
Mother, I'll go over and cheer poor Cousin King up a bit, for you
see, after all, if he'd lived, he'd be nothing but a burden, crippled
up like that; and a lingering job is always bad for poor folks.'

Alfred leant upon his elbow, his eyes full stretched, but feeling as
if all his senses had gone into his ears, in his agony to hear more;
and he even seemed to catch his mother's voice, but there was no hope
in that; it was of her knowing it would be all for the best; and the
sadness of it told him that she believed the same as Betsey. Then
came, 'Yes; I declare it gave me such a turn, you might have knocked
me down with a feather. I asked Mr. Blunt to come in and see what's
good for Mother, she feels so weak at times, and has such a noise in
her head, just like the regiment playing drums, she says, till she
can't hardly bear herself; and so what do you think he says? Don't
wrap up her head so warm, says he--a pretty thing for a doctor to
say, as if a poor old creature like that, past seventy years old,
could go without a bit of flannel to her head, and her three night-
caps, and a shawl over them when there's a draught. I say, Cousin, I
ha'n't got much opinion of Mr. Blunt. Why don't you get some of them
boxes of pills, that does cures wonderful? Ever so many lords and
ladies cured of a perplexity fit, by only just taking an imposing
draught or two.'

Another time Alfred would have laughed at the very imposing draught,
that was said to cure lords and ladies of this jumble between
apoplexy and paralysis; but this was no moment for laughing, and he
was in despair at fancying his mother wanted to lead her off on the
quack medicine; but she went on.

'Well, only read the papers that come with them. I make my girl
Sally read 'em all to me, being that she's a better scholar; and the
long words is quite heavenly--I declare there ain't one of them
shorter than peregrination. I'd have brought one of them over to
shew you if I hadn't come away in a hurry, because Evans's cart was
going out to the merry orchard, and says I to Mother, Well, I'll get
a lift now there's such a chance to Friarswood: it'll do them all a
bit of good to see a bit of cheerful company, seeing, as Mr. Blunt
says, that poor lad is going after his father as fast as can be.
Dear me, says I, you don't say so, such a fine healthy-looking chap
as he was. Yes, he says, but it's in the constitution; it's getting
to the lungs, and he'll never last out the winter.'

Alfred listened for the tone of his mother's voice; he knew he should
judge by that, even without catching the words--low, subdued, sad--he
almost thought she began with 'Yes.'

All the rest that he heard passed by him merely as a sound, noted no
more than the lowing of the cattle, or the drone of the thrashing
machine. He lay half lifted up on his pillows, drawing his breath
short with apprehension; his days were numbered, and death was coming
fast, fast, straight upon him. He felt it within himself--he knew
now the meaning of the pain and sinking, the shortness of breath and
choking of throat that had been growing on him through the long
summer days; he was being 'cut off with pining sickness,' and his
sentence had gone forth. He would have screamed for his mother in
the sore terror and agony that had come over him, in hopes she might
drive the notion from him; but the dread of seeing her followed by
that woman kept his lips shut, except for his long gasps of breath.

And she could not keep him--Mr. Blunt could not keep him; no one
could stay the hand that had touched him! Prayer! They had prayed
for his father, for Charlie, but it had not been God's Will. He had
himself many times prayed to recover, and it had not been granted--he
was worse and worse.

Moreover, whither did that path of suffering lead? Up rose before
Alfred the thought of living after the unknown passage, and of
answering for all he had done; and now the faults he had refused to
call to mind when he was told of chastisement, came and stood up of
themselves. Bred up to know the good, he had not loved it; he had
cared for his own pleasure, not for God; he had not heeded the
comfort of his widowed mother; he had been careless of the honour of
God's House, said and heard prayers without minding them; he had been
disrespectful and ill-behaved at my Lady's--he had been bad in every
way; and when illness came, how rebellious and murmuring he had been,
how unkind he had been to his patient mother, sister, and brother;
and when Mr. Cope had told him it was meant to lead him to repent, he
would not hear; and now it was too late, the door would be shut. He
had always heard that there was a time when sorrow was no use, when
the offer of being saved had been thrown away.

When Ellen came in, and after a short greeting to Betsey Hardman,
went up-stairs, she found Alfred lying back on his pillow, deadly
white, the beads of dew standing on his brow, and his breath in
gasps. She would have shrieked for her mother, but he held out his
hand, and said, in a low hoarse whisper, 'Ellen, is it true?'

'What, Alfy dear? What is the matter?'

'What SHE says.'

'Who? Betsey Hardman? Dear dear Alf, is it anything dreadful?'

'That I shall die,' said Alfred, his eyes growing round with terror
again. 'That Mr. Blunt said I couldn't last out the winter.'

'Dear Alfy, don't!' cried Ellen, throwing her arms round him, and
kissing him with all her might; 'don't fancy it! She's always
gossiping and gadding about, and don't know what she says, and she'd
got no business to tell stories to frighten my darling!' she
exclaimed, sobbing with agitation. 'I'm sure Mr. Blunt never said no
such thing!'

'But Mother thinks it, Ellen.'

'She doesn't, she can't!' cried Ellen vehemently; 'I know she
doesn't, or she could never go about as she does. I'll call her up
and ask her, to satisfy you.'

'No, no, not while that woman is there!' cried Alfred, holding her by
the dress; 'I'll not have HER coming up.'

Even while he spoke, however, Mrs. King was coming. Betsey had spied
an old acquaintance on the way from church, and had popped out to
speak to her, and Mrs. King caught that moment for coming up. She
understood all, for she had been sitting in great distress, lest
Alfred should be listening to every word which she was unable to
silence, and about which Betsey was quite thoughtless. So many
people of her degree would talk to the patient about himself and his
danger, and go on constantly before him with all their fears, and the
doctor's opinions, that Betsey had never thought of there being more
consideration and tenderness shewn in this house, nor that Mrs. King
would have hidden any pressing danger from the sick person; but such
plain words had not yet passed between her and Mr. Blunt; and though
she had long felt what Alfred's illness would come to, the perception
had rather grown on her than come at any particular moment.

Now when Ellen, with tears and agitation, asked what that Betsey had
been saying to frighten Alfred so, and when she saw her poor boy's
look at her, and heard his sob, 'Oh, Mother!' it was almost too much
for her, and she went up and kissed him, and laid him down less
uneasily, but he felt a great tear fall on his face.

'It's not true, Mother, I'm sure it is not true,' cried Ellen; 'she
ought--'

Mrs. King looked at her daughter with a sad sweet face, that stopped
her short, and brought the sense over her too. 'Did he say so,
Mother?' said Alfred.

'Not to me, dear,' she answered; 'but, Ellen, she's coming back!
She'll be up here if you don't go down.'

Poor Ellen! what would she not have given for power to listen to her
mother, and cry at her ease? But she was forced to hurry, or Betsey
would have been half-way up-stairs in another instant. She was a
hopeful girl, however, and after that 'not to me,' resolved to
believe nothing of the matter. Mrs. King knelt down by her son, and
looked at him tenderly; and then, as his eyes went on begging for an
answer, she said, 'Dr. Blunt never told me there was no hope, my
dear, and everything lies in God's power.'

'But you don't think I shall get well, Mother?'

'I don't feel as if you would, my boy,' she said, very low, and
fondling him all the time. 'You've got to cough like Father and
Charlie, and--though He might raise my boy up--yet anyhow, Alfy boy,
if God sees it good for us, it WILL be good for us, and we shall be
helped through with it.'

'But I'm not good, Mother! What will become of me?'

'Perhaps the hearing this is all out of God's mercy, to give you time
to get ready, my dear. You are no worse now than you were this
morning; you are not like to go yet awhile. No, indeed, my child; so
if you don't put off any longer--'

'Mother!' called up Ellen. She was in despair. Betsey was not to be
kept by her from satisfying herself upon Alfred's looks, and Mrs.
King was only in time to meet her on the stairs, and tell her that he
was so weak and low, that he could not be seen now, she could not
tell how it would be when he had had his tea.

Ellen thought she had never had so distressing a tea-drinking in her
life, as the being obliged to sit listening civilly to Betsey's long
story about the trouble she had about a stocking of Mrs. Martin's
that was lost in the wash, and that had gone to Miss Rosa Marlowe,
because Mrs. Martin had her things marked with a badly-done K. E. M.,
and all that Mrs. Martin's Maria and all Miss Marlowe's Jane had said
about it, and all Betsey's 'Says I to Mother,'--when she was so
longing to be watching poor Alfred, and how her mother could sit so
quietly making tea, and answering so civilly, she could not guess;
but Mrs. King had that sense of propriety and desire to do as she
would be done by, which is the very substance of Christian courtesy,
the very want of which made Betsey, with all her wish to be kind, a
real oppression and burthen to the whole party.

And where was Harold? Ellen had not seen him coming out of church,
but meal-times were pretty certain to bring him home.

'Oh,' said Betsey, 'I'll warrant he is off to the merry orchard.'

'I hope not,' said Mrs. King gravely.

'He never would,' said Ellen, in anger.

'Ah, well, I always said I didn't see no harm in a lad getting a bit
of pleasure.'

'No, indeed,' said Mrs. King. 'Harold knows I would not stint him in
the fruit nor in the pleasure, but I should be much vexed if he could
go out on a Sunday, buying and selling, among such a lot as meet at
that orchard.'

'Well, I'm sure I don't know when poor folks is to have a holiday if
not on a Sunday, and the poor boy must be terrible moped with his
brother so ill.'

'Not doing thine own pleasure on My holy day,' thought Ellen, but she
did not say it, for her mother could not bear for texts to be quoted
at people. But her heart was very heavy; and when she went up with
some tea to Alfred, she looked from the window to see whether, as she
hoped, Harold might be in Paul's hay-loft, preferring going without
his tea to being teased by Betsey. Paul sat in his loft, with his
Bible on his knee, and his head on Caesar's neck.

'Alfred,' said Ellen, 'do you know where Harold is? Sure he is not
gone to the merry orchard?'

'Is not he come home?' said Alfred. 'Oh, then he is! He is gone to
the merry orchard, breaking Sunday with Dick Royston! And by-and-by
he'll be ill, and die, and be as miserable as I am!' And Alfred
cried as Ellen had never seen him cry.

CHAPTER VI--THE MERRY ORCHARD

Where was Harold?

Still the evening went on, and he did not come. Alfred had worn
himself out with his fit of crying, and lay quite still, either
asleep, or looking so like it, that when Betsey had finished her tea,
and again began asking to see him, Ellen could honestly declare that
he was asleep.

Betsey had bidden them good-bye, more than half affronted at not
being able to report to her mother all about his looks, though she
carried with her a basket of gooseberries and French beans, and Mrs.
King walked all the way down the lane with her, and tried to shew an
interest in all she said, to make up for the disappointment.

Maybe likewise Mrs. King felt it a relief to her uneasiness to look
up and down the road, and along the river, and into the farm-yard, in
the hope that Harold might be in sight; but nothing was to be seen on
the road, but Master Norland, his wife, and baby, soberly taking
their Sunday walk; nor by the river, except the ducks, who seemed to
be enjoying their evening bath, and almost asleep on the water; nor
in the yard, except Paul Blackthorn, who had come down from his perch
to drive the horses in from the home-field, and shut the stable up
for the night.

She could not help stopping a moment at the gate, and calling out to
Paul to ask whether he had seen anything of Harold. He seemed to
have a great mind not to hear, and turned very slowly with his
shoulder towards her, making a sound like 'Eh?' as if to ask what she
said.

'Have you seen my boy Harold?'

'I saw him in the morning.'

'Have you not seen him since? Didn't he go to church with you?'

'No; I don't go to Sunday school.'

'Was he there?'

She did not receive any answer.

'Do you know if many of the boys are gone to the merry orchard?'

'Ay.'

'Well, you are a good lad not to be one of them.'

'Hadn't got any money,' said Paul gruffly; but Mrs. King thought he
said so chiefly from dislike to be praised, and that there had been
some principle as well as poverty to keep him away.

'It might be better if no one had it on a Sunday,' she could not help
sighing out as she looked anxiously along the lane ere turning in,
and then said, 'My good lad, I don't want to get you to be telling
tales, but it would set my heart at rest, and his poor brother's up
there, if you could tell me he is not gone to Briar Alley.'

Paul turned up his face from the gate upon which he was leaning his
elbows, and gazed for a moment at her sad, meek, anxious face, then
exclaimed, 'I can't think how he could!'

Poor Paul! was it not crossing him how impossible it would seem to do
anything to vex one who so cared for him?

'Then he is gone,' she said mournfully.

'They were all at him,' said Paul; 'and he said he'd never seen what
it was like. Please don't take on, Missus; he's right kind and good-
hearted, and wanted to treat me.'

'I had rather he had hearkened to you, my boy,' said Mrs. King.

'I don't know why he should do that,' said Paul, perhaps meaning that
a boy who heeded not such a mother would certainly heed no one else.
'But please, Missus,' he added, 'don't beat him, for you made me tell
on him.'

'Beat him! no,' said Mrs. King, with a sad smile; 'he's too big a boy
for me to manage that way. I can't do more than grieve if he lets
himself be led away.'

'Then I'd like to beat him myself if he grieves you!' burst out Paul,
doubling up his brown fist with indignation.

'But you won't,' said Mrs. King gently; 'I don't want to make a
quarrel among you, and I hope you'll help to keep him out of bad
ways, Paul. I look to you for it. Good-night.'

Perhaps the darkness and her own warm feeling made her forget the
condition of that hand; at any rate, as she said Good-night she took
it in her own and shook it heartily, and then she went in.

Paul did not say Good-night in answer; but when she had turned away,
his head went down between his two crossed arms upon the top of the
gate, and he did not move for many many minutes, except that his
shoulders shook and shook again, for he was sobbing as he had never
sobbed since Granny Moll died. If home and home love were not
matters of course to you, you might guess what strange new fountains
of feeling were stirred in the wild but not untaught boy, by that
face, that voice, that touch.

And Mrs. King, as she walked to her own door in the twilight, with
bitter pain in her heart, could not help thinking of those from the
highways and hedges who flocked to the feast set at naught by such as
were bidden.

A sad and mournful Sunday evening was that to the mother and
daughter, as each sat over her Bible. Mrs. King would not talk to
Ellen, for fear of awakening Alfred; not that low voices would have
done so, but Ellen was already much upset by what she had heard and
seen, and to talk it over would have brought on a fit of violent
crying; so her mother thought it safest to say nothing. They would
have read their Bible to one another, but each had her voice so
choked with tears, that it would not do.

That Alfred was sinking away into the grave, was no news to Mrs.
King; but perhaps it had never been so plainly spoken to her before,
and his own knowledge of it seemed to make it more sure; but broken-
hearted as she felt, she had been learning to submit to this, and it
might be better and safer for him, she thought, to be aware of his
state, and more ready to do his best with the time left to him. That
was not the freshest sorrow, or more truly a darker cloud had come
over, namely, the feeling, so terrible to a good careful mother, that
her son is breaking out of the courses to which she has endeavoured
and prayed to bring him up--that he is casting off restraint, and
running into evil that may be the beginning of ruin, and with no
father's hand to hold him in.

O Harold, had you but seen the thick tears dropping on the walnut
table behind the arm that hid her face from Ellen, you would not have
thought your fun worth them!

That merry orchard was about three miles from Friarswood. It
belonged to a man who kept a small public-house, and had a little
farm, and a large garden, with several cherry trees, which in May
were perfect gardens of blossoms, white as snow, and in August with
small black fruit of the sort known as merries; and unhappily the
fertile produce of these trees became a great temptation to the owner
and to all the villagers around.

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