Friarswood Post Office

‘They always were good children to me,’ said Mrs. King to Mr. Cope, ‘but somehow, since Paul has been here, I think they are better than ever!  There’s poor Alfred, though his cough has been so bad of late, has been so thoughtful and so good; he says he’s quite ashamed to find how patient Paul is under so much sharper pain than he ever had, and he’s ready to send anything to Paul that he fancies will do him good—quite carried out of himself, you see; and there’s Harold, so much steadier; I’ve hardly had to find fault with him since that poor boy made off—he’s sure to come in in time, and takes care not to disturb his brother, and helps his sister and me all he can.’

Mr. Cope was not at all surprised that the work of mercy was blessed to all the little household, nor that it drew out all the better side of their dispositions.

There was no positive change, nor sudden resolution, to alter Harold; but he had been a good deal startled by Dick’s wickedness, and in him had lost a tempter.  Besides, he considered Paul as his own friend, received for his sake, and therefore felt himself bound to do all he could for him, and though he was no nurse, he could do much to set his mother and Ellen free to attend to their patients.  And Paul’s illness, though so much less dangerous, frightened and subdued Harold much more than the quiet gradual pining away of Alfred, to which he was used.  The severe pain, the raging fever, and the ramblings in talk, were much more fearful things to witness than the low cough, the wearing sore, and the helpless languor, though there was much hope for the one, and scarcely any for the other.  While to Harold’s apprehension, Alfred was always just the same, only worsening visibly from month to month; Paul was better or worse every time he came in, and when fresh from hearing his breath gasp with sharp pain, or receiving his feeble thanks for some slight service, it was not in Harold to go out and get into thoughtless mischief.

Moreover, there were helpful things to do at home, such as Harold liked.  He was fond of chopping wood, so he was very obliging about the oven, and what he liked best of all was helping his mother in certain evening cookeries of sweet-meats, by receipts from Mrs. Crabbe.  On the day of the expedition from Ragglesford, the young gentlemen had found out that Mrs. King’s bottles contained what they called ‘the real article and no mistake,’ much better than what the old woman at the turnpike sold; and so they were, for Mrs. King made them herself, and, like an honest woman, without a morsel of sham in them.  She was not going to break the Eighth Commandment by cheating in a comfit any more than by stealing a purse; and the children of Friarswood had long known that, and bought all the ‘lollies’ that they were not naughty enough to buy on Sundays, when, as may be supposed, her shutters were not shut only for a decent show.

And now Harold did not often ride up to the school without some little master giving him a commission for some variety of sweet-stuff; and though Mrs. King used to say it was a pity the children should throw away their money in that fashion, it brought a good deal into her till, and Harold greatly liked assisting at the manufacture.  How often he licked his fingers during the process need not be mentioned; but his objection to Ragglesford was quite gone off, now that some one was nearly certain to be looking out for him, with a good-natured greeting, or an inquiry for Paul.  He knew one little boy from another, and felt friendly with them all, and he really was quite grieved when the holidays came, and they wished him good-bye.  The coach that had been hired to take them to Elbury seemed something to watch for now, and some thoughtful boy stopped all the whooping and hurraing as they came near the house on the bridge.  Some other stopped the coach, and they all came dropping off it like a swarm of black flies, and tumbling into the shop, where Mrs. King and her daughter had need to have had a dozen pair of hands to have served them, and they did not go till they had cleared out her entire stock of sweet things and gingerbread; nay, some of them would have gone off without their change, if she had not raced out to catch them with it after they were climbing up the coach, and then the silly fellows said they hated coppers!  And meeting Harold and his post-bag on his way home from Elbury, they raised such a tremendous cheer at him that poor Peggy seemed to make but three springs from the milestone to the bridge, and he could not so much as touch his cap by way of answer.

Somehow, even after those droll customers were gone, every Saturday’s reckoning was a satisfactory one.  More always seemed to come in than went out.  The potatoes had been unusually free from disease in Mrs. King’s garden, and every one came for them; the second pig turned out well; a lodger at the butcher’s took a fancy to her buns; and on the whole, winter, when her receipts were generally at the lowest, was now quite a prosperous time with her.  The great pressure and near anxiety she had expected had not come, and something was being put by every week towards the bill for flour, and for Mr. Blunt’s account, so that she began to hope that after all the Savings Bank would not have to be left quite bare.

Quite unexpectedly, John Farden came in for a share of the savings of an old aunt at service, and, like an honest fellow as he was, he got himself out of debt at once.  This quite settled all Mrs. King’s fears; Mr. Blunt and the miller would both have their due, and she really believed she should be no poorer!

Then she recollected the widow’s cruse of oil, and tears of thankfulness and faith came into her eyes, and other tears dropped when she remembered the other more precious comfort that the stranger had brought into the widow’s house, but she knew that the days of miracles and cures past hope were gone, and that the Christian woman’s promise was ‘that her children should come again,’ but not till the resurrection of the just.

And though to her eye each frost was freshly piercing her boy’s breast, each warm damp day he faded into greater feebleness, yet the hope was far clearer.  He was happy and content.  He had laid hold of the blessed hope of Everlasting Life, and was learning to believe that the Cross laid on him here was in mercy to make him fit for Heaven, first making him afraid and sorry for his sins, and ready to turn to Him Who could take them away, and then almost becoming gladness, in the thought of following his Master, though so far off.

Not that Alfred often said such things, but they breathed peace over his mind, and made Scripture-reading, prayers, and hymns very delightful to him, especially those in Matilda’s book; and he dwelt more than he told any one on Mr. Cope’s promise, when he trusted to be made more fully ‘one with Christ’ in the partaking of His Cup of Life.  It used to be his treat, when no one was looking, to read over that Service in his Prayer-book, and to think of the time.  It was like a kind of step; he could fix his mind on that, and the sense of forgiveness he hoped for therein, better than on the great change that was coming; when there was much fear and shrinking from the pain, and some dread of what as yet seemed strange and unknown, he thought he should feel lifted up so as to be able to bear the thought, when that holy Feast should have come to him.

All this made him much less occupied with himself, and he took much more share in what was going on; he could be amused and playful, cared for all that Ellen and Harold did, and was inclined to make the most of his time with his brother.  It was like old happy times, now that Alfred had ceased to be fretful, and Harold took heed not to distress him.

One thing to which Alfred looked forward greatly, was Paul’s being able to come into his room, and the two on their opposite sides of the wall made many pleasant schemes for the talk and reading that were to go on.  But when the day came, Alfred was more disappointed than pleased.

Paul had been cased, by Lady Jane’s orders, in flannel; he had over that a pair of trousers of Alfred’s—much too long, for the Kings were very tall, and he was small and stunted in growth—and a great wrapping-gown that Mr. Cope had once worn when he was ill at college, and over his shaven head a night-cap that had been their father’s.

Ellen, with many directions from Alfred, had made him up a couch with three chairs, and the cushions Alfred used to have when he could leave his bed; the fire was made up brightly, and Mrs. King and Harold helped Paul into the room.

But all the rheumatic pain was by no means over, and walking made him feel it; he was dreadfully weak, and was so giddy and faint after the first few steps, that they could not bring him to shake hands with Alfred as both had wished, but had to lay him down as fast as they could.  So tired was he, that he could hardly say anything all the time he was there; and Alfred had to keep silence for fear of wearying him still more.  There was a sort of shyness, too, which hindered the two from even letting their eyes meet, often as they had heard each other’s voices, and had greeted one another through the thin partition.  As Paul lay with his eyes shut, Alfred raised himself to take a good survey of the sharp pinched features, the hollow cheeks, deep-sunk pits for the eyes,—and yellow ghastly skin of the worn face, and the figure, so small and wasted that it was like nothing, curled up in all those wraps.  One who could read faces better than young Alfred could, would have gathered not only that the boy who lay there had gone through a great deal, but that there was much mind and thought crushed down by misery, and a gentle nature not fit to stand up alone against it, and so sinking down without exertion.

And when Alfred was learning a verse of his favourite hymn—

‘There is a rill whose waters rise—’

Paul’s eye-lids rose, and looked him all over dreamily, comparing him perhaps with the notions he had carried away from his two former glimpses.  Alfred did not look now so utterly different from anything he had seen before, since Mrs. King and Ellen had been hovering round his bed for nearly a month past; but still the fair skin, pink colour, dark eye-lashes, glossy hair, and white hands, were like a dream to him, as if they belonged to the pure land whither Alfred was going, and he was quite loath to hear him speak like another boy, as he knew he could do, having often listened to his talk through the wall.  At the least sign of Alfred’s looking up, he turned away his eyes as if he had been doing something by stealth.

He came in continually after this; and little things each day, and Harold’s talk, made the two acquainted and like boys together; but it was not till Christmas Day that they felt like knowing each other.

It was the first time Paul felt himself able to be of any use, for he was to be left in charge of Alfred, while Mrs. King and both her other children went to church.  Paul was sadly crippled still, and every frost filled his bones with acute pain, and bent him like an old man, so that he was still a long way from getting down-stairs, but he could make a shift to get about the room, and he looked greatly pleased when Alfred declared that he should want nobody else to stay with him in the morning.

Very glad he was that his mother would not be kept from Ellen’s first Holy Communion.  Owing to the Curate not being a priest, the Feast had not been celebrated since Michaelmas; but a clergyman had come to help Mr. Cope, that the parish might not be deprived of the Festival on such a day as Christmas.

Harold, though in a much better mood than at the Confirmation time, was not as much concerned to miss it as perhaps he ought to have been.  Thought had not come to him yet, and his head was full of the dinner with the servants at the Grange.  It was sad that he and Ellen should alone be able to go to it; but it would be famous for all that!  Ay, and so were the young postman’s Christmas-boxes!

So Paul and Alfred were left together, and held their tongues for full five minutes, because both felt so odd.  Then Alfred said something about reading the Service, and Paul offered to read it to him.

Paul had not only been very well taught, but had a certain gift, such as not many people have, for reading aloud well.  Alfred listened to those Psalms and Lessons as if they had quite a new meaning in them, for the right sound and stress on the right words made them sound quite like another thing; and so Alfred said when he left off.

‘I’m sure they do to me,’ said Paul.  ‘I didn’t know much about “good-will to men” last Christmas.’

‘You’ve not had overmuch good-will from them, neither,’ said Alfred, ‘since you came out.’

‘What! not since I’ve been at Friarswood?’ exclaimed Paul.  ‘Why, I used to think all that was only something in a book.’

‘All what?’ asked Alfred.

‘All about—why, loving one’s neighbour—and the Good Samaritan, and so on.  I never saw any one do it, you know, but it was comfortable like to read about it; and when I watched to your mother and all of you, I saw how it was about one’s neighbour; and then, what with that and Mr. Cope’s teaching, I got to feel how it was—about God!’ and Paul’s face looked very grave and peaceful.

‘Well,’ said Alfred, ‘I don’t know as I ever cared about it much—not since I was a little boy.  It was the fun last Christmas.’

And Paul looking curious, Alfred told all about the going out for holly, and the dining at the Grange, and the snap-dragon over the pudding, till he grew so eager and animated that he lost breath, and his painful cough came on, so that he could just whisper, ‘What did you do?’

‘Oh!  I don’t know.  We had prayers, and there was roast beef for dinner, but they gave it to me where it was raw, and I couldn’t eat it.  Those that had friends went out; but ‘twasn’t much unlike other days.’

‘Poor Paul!’ sighed Alfred.

‘It won’t be like that again, though,’ said Paul, ‘even if I was in a Union.  I know—what I know now.’

‘And, Paul,’ said Alfred, after a pause, ‘there’s one thing I should like if I was you.  You know our Blessed Saviour had no house over Him, but was left out of the inn, and nobody cared for Him.’

Paul did not make any answer; and Alfred blushed all over.

Presently Alfred said, ‘Harold will run in soon.  I say, Paul, would you mind reading me what they will say after the Holy Sacrament—what the Angels sang is the beginning.’

Paul found it, and felt as if he must stand to read such praise.

‘Thank you,’ said Alfred.  ‘I’m glad Mother and Ellen are there.  They’ll remember us, you know.  Did you hear what Mr. Cope promised me?’

Paul had not heard; and Alfred told him, adding, ‘It will be the Ember-week in Lent.  You’ll be one with me then, Paul?’

‘I’d like to promise,’ said Paul fervently; ‘but you see, when I’m well—’

‘Oh, you won’t go away for good.  My Lady, or Mr. Cope, will get you work; and I want you to be Mother’s good son instead of me; and a brother to Harold and Ellen.’

‘I’d never go if I could help it,’ said Paul; ‘I sometimes wish I’d never got better!  I wish I could change with you, Alfred; nobody would care if ’twas me; nor I’m sure I shouldn’t.’

‘I should like to get well!’ said Alfred slowly, and sighing.  ‘But then you’ve been a much better lad than I was.’

‘I don’t know why you should say that,’ said Paul, with his hand under his chin, rather moodily.  ‘But if I thought I could be good and go on well, I would not mind so much.  I say, Alfred, when people round go on being—like Tom Boldre, you know—do you think one can always feel that about God being one’s Father, and church home, and all the rest?’

‘I can’t say—I never tried,’ said Alfred.  ‘But you know you can always go to church—and then the Psalms and Lessons tell you those things.  Well, and you can go to the Holy Sacrament—I say, Paul, if you take it the first time with me, you’ll always remember me again every time after.’

‘I must be very odd ever to forget you!’ said Paul, not far from crying.  ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, ‘they are coming out of church!’

‘I want to say one thing more, while I’ve got it in my head,’ said Alfred.  ‘Mr. Cope said all this sickness was a cross to me, and I’d got to take it up for our Saviour’s sake.  Well, and then mayn’t yours be being plagued and bullied, without any friends?  I’m sure something like it happened to our Lord; and He never said one word against them.  Isn’t that the way you may be to follow Him?’

Illness and thought had made such things fully plain to Alfred, and his words sank deep into Paul’s mind; but there was not time for any answer, for Harold was heard unlocking the door, and striding up three steps at a time, sending his voice before him.  ‘Well, old chaps, have you quarrelled yet?  Have you been jolly together?  I say, Mrs. Crabbe told Ellen that the pudding was put into the boiler at eight o’clock last night; and my Lady and Miss Jane went in to give it a stir!  I’m to bring you home a slice, you know; and Paul will know what a real pudding is like.’

The two boys spent a happy quiet afternoon with Mrs. King; and Charles Hayward brought all the singing boys down, that they might hear the carols outside the window.  Paul, much tired, was in his bed by that time; but his last thought was that ‘Good-will to Men’ had come home to him at last.