Friarswood Post Office

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

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As Sunday was the only day when people could be at leisure, he chose
three Sundays when the cherries were ripe for throwing open his
orchard to all who chose to come and buy and eat the fruit, and of
course cakes and drink of various kinds were also sold. It was a
solitary spot, out of the way of the police, or the selling in
church-time would have been stopped; but as there may be cases of
real distress, the law does not shut up all houses for selling food
and drink on a Sunday, so others, where there is no necessity, take
advantage of it; and so for miles round all the idle young people and
children would call it a holiday to go away from their churches to
eat cherries at Briar Alley, buying and selling on a Sunday, noisy
and clamorous, and forgetting utterly that it was the Lord's Day, not
their day of idle pleasure.

It was a sad pity that an innocent feast of fruit should be almost
out of reach, unless enjoyed in this manner. To be sure, merries
might be bought any day of the week at Briar Alley, and were hawked
up and down Friarswood so cheaply that any one might get a mouth as
purple as the black spaniel's any day in the season; but that was
nothing to the fun of going with numbers, and numbers never could go
except on a Sunday. But if people wish to serve God truly, why, they
must make up their minds to miss pleasures for His sake, and this was
one to begin with; and I am much mistaken if the happiness of the
week would not have turned out greater in the end with him. Ay, and
as to the owner of the trees, who said he was a poor man, and could
not afford to lose the profit, I believe that if he would have
trusted God and kept His commandment, his profit in the long run
would have been greater here, to say nothing of the peril to his own
soul of doing wrong, and leading so many into temptation.

The Kings had been bred up to think a Sunday going to the merry
orchard a thing never to be done; and in his most idle days Alfred
would never have dreamt of such a thing. Indeed, their good mother
always managed to have some treat to make up for it when they were
little; and they certainly never wanted for merries, nay, a merry
pudding had been their dinner this very day, with savage-looking
purple juice and scalding hot stones. If Harold went it was for the
frolic, not for want of the dainty; and wrong as it was, his mother
was grieving more at the thought of his casting away the restraint of
his old habits than for the one action. One son going away into the
unseen world, the other being led away from the paths of right--no
wonder she wept as she tried to read!

At last voices were coming, and very loud ones. The summer night was
so still, they could be heard a great way--those rude coarse voices
of village boys boasting and jeering one another.

'I say, wouldn't you like to be one of they chaps at Ragglesford
School?'

'What lots they bought there on Saturday, to be sure!'

'Well they may: they've lots of tin!'

'Have they? How d'ye know?'

'Why, the money-letters! Don't I know the feel of them--directed to
master this and master that, and with a seal and a card, and half a
sovereign, or maybe a whole one, under it; and such lots as they gets
before the holidays--that's to go home, you see.'

'Well, it's a shame such little impudent rogues should get so much
without ever doing a stroke of work for it.'

'I say, Harold, don't ye never put one of they letters in your
pocket?'

'For shame, Dick!'

'Ha! I shall know where to come when I wants half a sovereign or
so!'

'No, you won't.'

It was only these last two or three speeches that reached the cottage
at all clearly; and they were followed by a sound as if Harold had
fallen upon one of the others, and they were holding him off, with
halloos and shouts of hoarse laughing, which broke Alfred's sleep,
and his voice came down-stairs with a startled cry of 'Mother!
Mother! what is that?' She ran up-stairs in haste, and Ellen threw
the door open. The sudden display of the light silenced the noisy
boys; and Harold came slowly up the garden-path, pretty certain of a
scolding, and prepared to feel it as little as he could help.

'Well, Master, a nice sort of a way of spending a Sunday evening
this!' began Ellen; 'and coming hollaing up the lane, just on purpose
to wake poor Alfred, when he's so ill!'

'I'm sure I never meant to wake him.'

'Then what did you bring all that good-for-nothing set roaring and
shouting up the road for? And just this evening, too, when one would
have thought you would we have cared for poor Mother and Alfred,'
said she, crying.

'Why, what's the matter now?' said Harold.

'Oh, they've been saying he can't live out the winter,' said Ellen,
shedding the tears that had been kept back all this time, and broke
out now with double force, in her grief for one brother and vexation
with the other.

But next winter seemed a great way off to Harold, and he was put out
besides, so he did not seem shocked, especially as he was reproached
with not feeling what he did not know; so all he did was to say
angrily, 'And how was I to know that?'

'Of course you don't know anything, going scampering over the country
with the worst lot you can find, away from church and all, not caring
for anything! Poor Mother! she never thought one of her lads would
come to that!'

'Plenty does so, without never such a fuss,' said Harold. 'Why, what
harm is there in eating a few cherries?'

There would be very little pleasure or use in knowing what a
wrangling went on all the time Mrs. King was up-stairs putting Alfred
to bed. Ellen had all the right on her side, but she did not use it
wisely; she was very unhappy, and much displeased with Harold, and so
she had it all out in a fretful manner that made him more cross and
less feeling than was his nature.

There was something he did feel, however--and that was his mother's
pale, worn, sorrowful face, when she came down-stairs and hushed
Ellen, but did not speak to him. They took down the books, read
their chapter, and she read prayers very low, and not quite steadily.
He would have liked very much to have told her he felt sorry, but he
was too proud to do so after having shewn Ellen he was above caring
for such nonsense.

So they all went to bed, Harold on a little landing at the top of the
stairs; but--whether it was from the pounds of merry-stones he had
swallowed, or the talk he had had with his sister--he could not go to
sleep, and lay tossing and tumbling about, thinking it very odd he
had not heeded more what Ellen had said when he first came in, and
the notion dawning on him more and more, that day after day would
come and make Alfred worse, and that by the time summer came again he
should be alone. Who could have said it? Why had not he asked?
What could he have been thinking about? It should not be true! A
sort of frenzy to speak to some one, and hear the real meaning of
those words, so as to make sure they were only Ellen's nonsense, came
over him in the silent darkness. Presently he heard Alfred moving on
his pillow, for the door was open for the heat; and that long long
sigh made him call in a whisper, 'Alf, are you awake?'

In another moment Harold was by his brother's side. 'Alf! Alf! are
you worse?' he asked, whispering.

'No.'

'Then what's all this? What did they say? It's all stuff; I'm sure
it is, and you're getting better. But what did Ellen mean?'

'No, Harold,' said Alfred, getting his brother's hand in his, 'it's
not stuff; I shan't get well; I'm going after poor Charlie; and don't
you be a bad lad, Harold, and run away from your church, for you
don't know--how bad it feels to--' and Alfred turned his face down,
for the tears were coming thick.

'But you aren't going to die, Alf. Charlie never was like you, I
know he wasn't; he was always coughing. It is all Ellen. Who said
it? I won't let them.'

'The doctor said it to Betsey Hardman,' said Alfred; and his cough
was only too like his brother's.

Harold would have said a great deal in contempt of Betsey Hardman,
but Alfred did not let him.

'You'll wake Mother,' he said. 'Hush, Harold, don't go stamping
about; I can't bear it! No, I don't want any one to tell me now;
I've been getting worse ever since I was taken, and--oh! be quiet,
Harold.'

'I can't be quiet,' sobbed Harold, coming nearer to him. 'O Alf! I
can't spare you! There hasn't been no proper downright fun without
you, and--'

Harold had lain down by him and clung to his hand, trying not to sob
aloud.

'O Harold!' sighed Alfred, 'I don't think I should mind--at least not
so much--if I hadn't been such a bad boy.'

'You, Alfy! Who was ever a good boy if you was not?'

'Hush! You forget all about when I was up at my Lady's, and all
that. Oh! and how bad I behaved at church, and when I was so saucy
to Master about the marbles; and so often I've not minded Mother. O
Harold! and God judges one for everything!'

What a sad terrified voice it was!

'Oh! don't go on so, Alf! I can't bear it! Why, we are but boys;
and those things were so long ago! God will not be hard on little
boys. He is merciful, don't you know?'

'But when I knew it was wrong, I did the worst I could!' said Alfred.
'Oh, if I could only begin all over again, now I do care! Only,
Harold, Harold, you are well; you can be good now when there's time.'

'I'll be ever so good if you'll only get well,' said Harold. 'I
wouldn't have gone to that there place to-night; but 'tis so terribly
dull, and one must do something.'

'But in church-time, and on Sunday!'

'Well, I'll never do it again; but it was so sunshiny, and they were
all making such fun, you see, and it did seem so stuffy, and so long
and tiresome, I couldn't help it, you see.'

Alfred did not think of asking how, if Harold could not help it this
time, he could be sure of never doing so again. He was more inclined
to dwell on himself, and went back to that one sentence, 'God judges
us for everything.' Harold thought he meant it for him, and
exclaimed,

'Yes, yes, I know, but--oh, Alf, you shouldn't frighten one so; I
never meant no harm.'

'I wasn't thinking about that,' sighed Alfred. 'I was wishing I'd
been a better lad; but I've been worse, and crosser, and more unkind,
ever since I was ill. O Harold! what shall I do?'

'Don't go on that way,' said Harold, crying bitterly. 'Say your
prayers, and maybe you will get well; and then in the morning I'll
ask Mr. Cope to come down, and he'll tell you not to mind.'

'I wouldn't listen to Mr. Cope when he told me to be sorry for my
sins; and oh, Harold, if we are not sorry, you know they will not be
taken away.'

'Well, but you are sorry now.'

'I have heard tell that there are two ways of being sorry, and I
don't know if mine is the right.'

'I tell you I'll fetch Mr. Cope in the morning; and when the doctor
comes he'll be sure to say it is all a pack of stuff, and you need
not be fretting yourself.'

When Harold awoke in the morning, he found himself lying wrapped in
his coverlet on Alfred's bed, and then he remembered all about it,
and looked in haste, as though he expected to see some sudden and
terrible change in his brother.

But Alfred was looking cheerful, he had awakened without discomfort;
and with some amusement, was watching the starts and movements, the
grunts and groans, of Harold's waking. The morning air and the
ordinary look of things, had driven away the gloomy thoughts of
evening, and he chiefly thought of them as something strange and
dreadful, and yet not quite a dream.

'Don't tell Mother,' whispered Harold, recollecting himself, and
starting up quietly.

'But you'll fetch Mr. Cope,' said Alfred earnestly.

Harold had begun not to like the notion of meeting Mr. Cope, lest he
should hear something of yesterday's doings, and he did not like
Alfred or himself to think of last night's alarm, so he said, 'Oh,
very well, I'll see about it.'

He had not made up his mind. Very likely, if chance had brought him
face to face with Mr. Cope, he would have spoken about Alfred as the
best way to hinder the Curate from reproving himself; but he had not
that right sort of boldness which would have made him go to meet the
reproof he so richly deserved, and he was trying to persuade himself
either that when Alfred was amused and cheery, he would forget all
about 'that there Betsey's nonsense,' or else that Mr. Cope might
come that way of himself.

But Alfred was not likely to forget. What he had heard hung on him
through all the little occupations of the morning, and made him meek
and gentle under them, and he was reckoning constantly upon Mr.
Cope's coming, fastening on the notion as if he were able to save
him.

Still the Curate came not, and Alfred became grieved, feeling as if
he was neglected.

Mr. Blunt, however, came, and at any rate he would have it out with
him; so he asked at once very straightforwardly, 'Am I going to die,
Sir?'

'Why, what's put that in your head?' said the doctor.

'There was a person here talking last night, Sir,' said Mrs. King.

'Well, but am I?' said Alfred impatiently.

'Not just yet, I hope,' said Mr. Blunt cheerfully. 'You are weak,
but you'll pick up again.'

'But of this?' persisted Alfred, who was not to be trifled with.

Mr. Blunt saw he must be in earnest.

'My boy,' he said, 'I'm afraid it is not a thing to be got over.
I'll do the best I can for you, by God's blessing; and if you get
through the winter, and it is a mild spring, you might do; but you'd
better settle your mind that you can't be many years for this world.'

Many years! that sounded like a reprieve, and sent gladness into
Ellen's heart; but somehow it did not seem in the same light to
Alfred; he felt that if he were slowly going down hill and wasting
away, so as to have no more health or strength in which to live
differently from ever before, the length of time was not much to him,
and in his sickly impatience he would almost have preferred that it
should not be what Betsey kindly called 'a lingering job.'

There he lay after Mr. Blunt was gone, not giving Ellen any trouble,
except by the sad thoughtfulness of his face, as he lay dwelling on
all that he wanted to say to Mr. Cope, and the terror of his sin and
of judgment sweeping over him every now and then.

Still Mr. Cope came not. Alfred at last began to wonder aloud, and
asked if Harold had said anything about it when he came in to dinner;
but he heard that Harold had only rushed in for a moment, snatched up
a lump of bread and cheese, and made off to the river with some of
the lads who meant to spend the noon-tide rest in bathing.

When he came for the evening letters he was caught, and Mr. Cope was
asked for; and then it came out that Harold had never given the
message at all.

Alfred, greatly hurt, and sadly worn by his day of expectation, had
no self-restraint left, and flew out into a regular passion, calling
his brother angry names. Harold, just as passionate, went into a
rage too, and scolded his brother for his fancies. Mrs. King, in
great displeasure, turned him out, and he rushed off to ride like one
mad to Elbury; and poor Alfred remained so much shocked at his own
outbreak, just when he meant to have been good ever after, and
sobbing so miserably, that no one could calm him at all; and Ellen,
as the only hope, put on her bonnet to fetch Mr. Cope.

At that moment Paul was come for his bit of bread. She found him
looking dismayed at the sounds of violent weeping from above, and he
asked what it was.

'Oh, Alfred is so low and so bad, and he wants Mr. Cope! Here's your
bread, don't keep me!'

'Let me go! I'll be quicker!' cried Paul; and before she could thank
him, he was down the garden and right across the first field.

Alfred had had time to cry himself exhausted, and to be lying very
still, almost faint, before Mr. Cope came in in the summer twilight.
Good Paul! He had found that Mr. Cope was dining at Ragglesford and
had run all the way thither; and here was the kind young Curate,
quite breathless with his haste, and never regretting the cheerful
party whence he had been called away. All Alfred could say was, 'O
Sir, I shall die; and I'm a bad boy, and wouldn't heed you when you
said so.'

'And God has made you see your sins, my poor boy,' said Mr. Cope.
'That is a great blessing.'

'But if I can't do anything to make up for them, what's the use? And
I never shall be well again.'

'You can't make up for them; but there is One Who has made up for
them, if you will only truly repent.'

'I wasn't sorry till I knew I should die,' said Alfred.

'No, your sins did not come home to you! Now, do you know what they
are?'

'Oh yes; I've been a bad boy to Mother, and at church; and I've been
cross to Ellen, and quarrelled with Harold; and I was so audacious at
my Lady's, they couldn't keep me. I never did want really to be
good. Oh! I know I shall go to the bad place!'

'No, Alfred, not if you so repent, that you can hold to our Blessed
Saviour's promise. There is a fountain open for sin and all
uncleanness.'

'It is very good of Him,' said Alfred, a little more tranquilly, not
in the half-sob in which he had before spoken.

'Most merciful!' said Mr. Cope.

'But does it mean me?' continued Alfred.

'You were baptized, Alfred, you have a right to all His promises of
pardon.' And he repeated the blessed sentences:

'Come unto Me, all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will
refresh you.'

'God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, to the
end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.'

'But how ought I to believe, Sir?'

'You say you feel what your sins are; think of them all as you lie,
each one as you remember it; say it out in your heart to our Saviour,
and pray God to forgive it for His sake, and then think that it cost
some of the pain He bore on the Cross, some of the drops of His agony
in the Garden. Each sin of ours was indeed of that burden!'

'Oh, that will make them seem so bad!'

'Indeed it does; but how it will make you love Him, and feel thankful
to Him, and anxious not to waste the sufferings borne for your sake,
and glad, perhaps, that you are bearing some small thing yourself.
But you are spent, and I had better not talk more now. Let me read
you a few prayers to help you, and then I will leave you, and come
again to-morrow.'

How differently those Prayers and Psalms sounded to Alfred now that
he had really a heart grieved and wearied with the burthen of sin!
The point was to make his not a frightened heart, but a contrite
heart.

CHAPTER VII--HAROLD TAKES A WRONG TURN

Mrs. King was very anxious about Alfred for many hours after this
visit from the Curate, for he was continually crying, not violently,
but the tears flowing quietly from his eyes as he lay, thinking.
Sometimes it was the badness of the faults as he saw them now,
looking so very different from what they did when they were committed
in the carelessness of fun and high spirits, or viewed afterwards in
the hardening light of self-justification. Now they did look so
wantonly hard and rude--unkind to his sister, ruinous to Harold,
regardless of his widowed mother, reckless of his God--that each one
seemed to cut into him with a sense of its own badness, and he was
quite as much grieved as afraid; he hated the fault, and hated
himself for it.

Indeed, he was growing less afraid, for the sorrow seemed to swallow
that up; the grief at having offended One so loving was putting out
the terror of being punished; or rather, when he thought that this
illness was punishment, he was almost glad to have some of what he
deserved; just as when he was a little boy, he really used to be
happier afterwards for having been whipped and put in the corner,
because that was like making it up. Though he knew very well that if
he had ten thousand times worse than this to bear, it would not be
making up for his faults, and he felt now that one of them had been
his 'despising the chastening of the Lord.' And then the thought of
what had made up for it would come: and though he had known of it
all his life, and heeded it all too little, now that his heart was
tender, and he had felt some of the horror and pain of sin, he took
it all home now, and clung to it. He recollected the verses about
that One kneeling--nay, falling on the ground, in the cold dewy
night, with the chosen friends who could not watch with Him, and the
agony and misery that every one in all the world deserved to feel,
gathering on Him, Who had done no wrong, and making His brow stream
with great drops of Blood.

And the tortures, the shame, the slow Death--circumstance after
circumstance came to his mind, and 'for me,' 'this fault of mine
helped,' would rise with it, and the tears trickled down at the
thought of the suffering and of the Love that had caused it to be
undergone.

Once he raised up his head, and saw through the window the deep dark-
blue sky, and the stars, twinkling and sparkling away; that pale band
of light, the Milky Way, which they say is made of countless stars
too far off to be distinguished, and looking like a cloud, and on it
the larger, brighter burnished stars, differing from one another in
glory. He thought of some lines in a book Miss Jane once gave Ellen,
which said of the stars:

'The Lord resigned them all to gain
The bliss of pardoning thee.'

And when he thought that it was the King of those stars Who was
scourged and spit on, and for the sake of HIS faults, the loving
tears came again, and he turned to another hymn of Ellen's:

'Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!'

And going on with this, he fell into a more quiet sleep than he had
had for many nights.

Alfred had worked up his mind to a point where it could not long
remain; and when he awoke in the morning, the common affairs of the
day occupied him in a way that was not hurtful to him, as the one
chief thought was ever present, only laid away for a time, and
helping him when he might have been fretful or impatient.

He was anxious for Mr. Cope, and grateful when he saw him coming
early in the day. Mr. Cope did not, however, say anything very new.
He chiefly wished to shew Alfred that he must not think all his
struggle with sin over, and that he had nothing to do but to lie
still and be pardoned. There was much more work, as he would find,
when the present strong feeling should grow a little blunt; he would
have to keep his will bent to bear what was sent by God, and to prove
his repentance by curing himself of all his bad habits of peevishness
and exacting; to learn, in fact, to take up his cross.

Alfred feebly promised to try, and it did not seem so difficult just
then. The days were becoming cooler, and he did not feel quite so
ill; and though he did not know how much this helped him, it made it
much easier to act on his good resolutions. Miss Selby came to see
him, and was quite delighted to see him looking so much less
uncomfortable and dismal.

'Why, Alfred,' said she, 'you must be much better.'

Ellen looked mournful at this, and shook her head so that Miss Jane
turned her bright face to her in alarm.

'No, Ma'am,' said Alfred. 'Dr. Blunt says I can never get over it.'

'And does that make you glad?' almost gasped Miss Jane.

'No, Ma'am,' said Alfred; 'but Mr. Cope has been talking to me, and
made it all so--'

He could not get out the words; and, besides, he saw Miss Jane's eyes
winking very fast to check the tears, and Ellen's had begun to rain
down fast.

'I didn't mean to be silly,' said little Jane, in rather a trembling
voice; 'but I'm sorry--no--I'm glad you are happy and good, Alfred.'

'Not good, Miss Jane,' cried Alfred; 'I'm such a bad boy, but there
are such good things as I never minded before--'

'Well then, I think you'll like what I've brought you,' said Jane
eagerly.

It was a little framed picture of our Blessed Lord on His Cross, all
darkness round, and the Inscription above His Head; and Miss Jane had
painted, in tall Old English red letters, under it the two words,
'For me.'

Alfred looked at it as if indeed it would be a great comfort to him
to be always reminded by the eye, of how 'He was wounded for our
transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities.'

He thanked Miss Jane with all his heart, and she and Ellen soon found
a place to hang it up well in his sight. It was a pretty bright
sight to see her insisting on holding the nail for it, and then
playfully pretending to shrink and fancy that Ellen would hammer her
fingers.

Alfred could enjoy the sunshine of his sick-room again; and Ellen and
his mother down-stairs told Miss Selby, with many tears, of the happy
change that had come over him ever since he had resigned himself to
give up hopes of life. Mrs. King looked so peaceful and thankful,
that little Jane could hardly understand what it was that made her so
much more at rest.

Even Ellen, though her heart ached at the hope having gone out, and
left a dark place where it had been, felt the great relief from hour
to hour of not being fretted and snarled at for whatever she either
did or left undone. Thanks and smiles were much pleasanter payment
than groans, murmurs, and scoldings; and the brother and sister
sometimes grew quite cheerful and merry together, as Alfred lay
raised up to look over the hedge into the harvest-field across the
meadow, where the reaper and his wife might be seen gathering the
brown ears round, and cutting them with the sickle, and others going
after to bind them into the glorious wheat sheaves that leant against
each other in heaps of blessed promise of plenty.

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