Friarswood Post Office

He paid the penny, threw aside his cap, and took the gun, though after all it was only a sham one, and what a miss he made!  What business had every one to set up that great hoarse laugh? which made him so angry that he had nearly turned on Dick and cuffed him for his pains.

However, he was the more bent on trying again, and the owner of the gallery shewed him how to manage better.  He hit anything but the middle of the star, and just saw how he thought he might hit next time.  Next time was barely a miss, so that the man actually gave him a gin-drop to encourage him.  That made him mad to meet with real success; but it was the turn of another ‘young gent,’ as the man called him, and Harold had to stand by, with his penny in his hand, burning with impatience, and fancying he could mend each shot of that young gent, and another, and another, and another, who all thrust in to claim their rights before him.  His turn came at last; and so short and straight was the gallery, that he really did hit once the side of the star, and once the middle, and thus gained one gingerbread-nut, and three of the gin-drops.

It would have been his nature to share them with Alfred, but he could not do so without saying where he had been, and that he could not do, so he gave one to Dick, and swallowed the rest to keep out the cold.

Just then the town clock struck six, and frightened him.  He had been there three-quarters of an hour.  What would they say at the post-office?

The clerk looked out of his hole as angry as clerk could look.  ‘This won’t do, King,’ he said.  ‘Late for sorting!  Fine, remember—near an hour after time.’

‘Pony cast a shoe, Sir,’ said Harold.  He had never been so near a downright falsehood.

‘Whew!  Then I suppose I must not report you this time!  But look out!  You’re getting slack.’

No time this for borrowing of the clerk.  Harold was really frightened, for he had dawdled much more than he ought of late, and though he sometimes fancied himself sick of the whole post business, a complaint to his mother would be a dreadful matter.  It put everything else out of his head; and he ran off in great haste to get the money from Betsey Hardman, knocking loud at her green door.

What a cloud of steamy heat the room was, with the fire glowing like a red furnace, and five black irons standing up before it; and clothes-baskets full of heaps of whiteness, and horses with vapoury webs of lace and cambric hanging on them; and the three ironing-boards, where smoothness ran along with the irons; and the heaps of folded clothes; and Betsey in her white apron, broad and red in the midst of her maidens!

‘Ha!  Harold King!  Well, to be sure, you are a stranger!  Don’t come nigh that there hoss; it’s Mrs. Parnell’s best pocket-handkerchiefs, real Walencines!’ (she meant Valenciennes.)  ‘If you’ll just run up and see Mother, I’ll have it out of the way, and we’ll have a cup of tea.’

‘Thank you, but I—’

‘My!  What a smoke ye’re in!  Take care, or I shall have ’em all to do over again.  Go up to Mother, do, like a good lad.’

‘I can’t, Betsey; I must go home.’

‘Ay! that’s the way.  Lads never can sit down sensible and comfortable! it’s all the same—’

‘I wanted,’ said Harold, interrupting her, ‘to ask you to lend me sixpence.  Pony’s cast a shoe, and I had to leave her with the smith.’

‘Ay?  Who did you leave her with?’

‘The first I came to, up in Wood Street.’

‘Myers.  Ye shouldn’t have done that.  His wife’s the most stuck-up proud body I ever saw—wears steel petticoats, I’ll answer for it.  You should have gone to Charles Shaw.’

‘Can’t help it,’ said Harold.  ‘Please, Betsey, let me have the sixpence; I’ll pay you faithfully to-morrow!’

‘Ay! that’s always the way.  Never come in unless ye want somewhat.  ‘Twasn’t the way your poor father went on!  He’d a civil word for every one.  Well, and can’t you stop a minute to say how your poor brother is?’

‘Much the same,’ said Harold impatiently.

‘Yes, he’ll never be no better, poor thing!  All decliny; as I says to Mother, what a misfortune it is upon poor Cousin King! they’ll all go off, one after t’other, just like innocents to the slaughter.’

This was not a cheerful prediction; and Harold petulantly said he must get back, and begged for the sixpence.  He got it at last, but not till all Betsey’s pocket had been turned out; and finding nothing but shillings and threepenny-bits, she went all through her day’s expenses aloud, calling all her girls to witness to help her to account for the sixpence that ought to have been there.

Mrs. Brown had paid her four and sixpence—one florin and a half-crown—and she had three threepenny-pieces in her pocket, and twopence.  Then Sally had been out and got a shilling’s-worth of soap, and six-penn’orth of blue, and brought home one shilling; and there was the sausages—no one could recollect what they had cost, though they talked so much about their taste; and five-pence-worth of red-herrings, and the butter; yes, and threepence to the beggar who said he had been in Sebastopol.  Harold’s head was ready to turn round before it was all done; but he got away at last, with a scolding for not going up to see Mother.

Home he trotted as hard as the pony would go, holding his head down to try to bury nose and mouth in his collar, and the thick rain plastering his hair, and streaming down the back of his neck.  What an ill-used wretch was he, said he to himself, to have to rattle all over the country in such weather!

Here was home at last.  How comfortable looked the bright light, as the cottage door was thrown open at the sound of the horse’s feet!

‘Well, Harold!’ cried Ellen eagerly, ‘is anything the matter?’

‘No,’ he said, beginning to get sulky because he felt he was wrong; ‘only Peggy lost a shoe—’

‘Lame?’

‘No, I took her to the smith.’

‘Give me Alfred’s ointment, please, before you put her up.  He is in such a way about it, and we can’t put him to bed—’

‘Haven’t got it.’

‘Not got it!  O Harold!’

‘I should like to know how to be minding such things when pony loses a shoe, and such weather!  I declare I’m as wet—!’ said Harold angrily, as he saw his sister clasp her hands in distress, and the tears come in her eyes.

‘Is Harold come safe?’ called Mrs. King from above.

‘Is the ointment come?’ cried Alfred, in a piteous pain-worn voice.

Harold stamped his foot, and bolted to the stable to put the pony away.

‘It’s not come,’ said Ellen, coming up-stairs, very sadly.

‘He has forgot it.’

‘Forgot it!’ cried Alfred, raising himself passionately.  ‘He always does forget everything!  He don’t care for me one farthing!  I believe he wants me dead!’

‘This is very bad of him!  I didn’t think he’d have done it,’ said Mrs. King sorrowfully.

‘He’s been loitering after some mischief,’ exclaimed Alfred.  ‘Taking his pleasure—and I must stay all this time in pain!  Serve him right to send him back to Elbury.’

Mrs. King had a great mind to have done so; but when she looked at the torrents of rain that streamed against the window, and thought how wet Harold must be already, and of the fatal illnesses that had been begun by being exposed to such weather, she was afraid to venture a boy with such a family constitution, and turning back to Alfred, she said, ‘I am very sorry, Alfred, but it can’t be helped; I can’t send Harold out in the rain again, or we shall have him ill too.’

Poor Alfred! it was no trifle to have suffered all day, and to be told the pain must go on all night.  His patience and all his better thoughts were quite worn away, and he burst into tears of anger and cried out that it was very hard—his mother cared for Harold more than for him, and nobody minded it, if he lay in such pain all night.

‘You know better than that, dear,’ said his poor mother, sadly grieved, but bearing it meekly.  ‘Harold shall go as soon as can be to-morrow.’

‘And what good will that be to-night?’ grumbled Alfred.  ‘But you always did put Harold before me.  However, I shall soon be dead and out of your way, that’s all!’

Mrs. King would not make any answer to this speech, knowing it only made him worse.  She went down to see about Harold, an additional offence to Alfred, who muttered something about ‘Mother and her darling.’

‘How can you, Alfred, speak so to Mother?’ cried Ellen.

‘I’m sure every one is cross enough to me,’ returned Alfred.

‘Not Mother,’ said Ellen.  ‘She couldn’t help it.’