Friarswood Post Office

This notion rather interested Alfred; he began to build up a fine scheme of shouting out and sending Harold to the rescue of the cocks and hens, and how well he would have done it himself a year ago, and pinned the thief, and fastened the door on him.  Not that he thought this individual lad at all likely to be a thief, nor did he care much for Farmer Shepherd, who was a hard man and no favourite; but to catch a thief would be a grand feat.  And while settling his clever plan, and making some compliments for the magistrate to pay him, Alfred, fanned by the cool breeze, fell into a sound sleep, and did not wake till the sun was high, and all the rest of the house were up and dressed.

That good sleep made him much more able to bear the burden of the day.  First, his mother came with the towel and basin, and washed his face and hands; and then he had his little book, and said his prayers; and somehow to-day he felt so much less fractious than usual, that he asked to be taught patience, and not only to be made well, as he had hitherto done.

That over, he lay smiling as he waited for his breakfast, and when Ellen brought it to him, he had not one complaint to make, but ate it almost with a relish.  ‘Is that boy gone?’ he asked Ellen, as she tidied the room while he was eating.

‘What, the dirty boy?  No, there he is, speaking to the farmer.  Will he beg of him?’

‘Asking for work, more likely.’

‘I’d sooner give work to a pig at once,’ said Ellen; ‘but I do believe he’s getting it.  I fancy they are short of hands for the hay.  Yes, he’s pointing into the field.  Ay, and he’s sending him into the yard.’

‘I hope he’ll give him some breakfast,’ said Alfred.  ‘Do you know he slept all night on a hay-cock?’

‘Yes, so Mother said, just like a dog; and he got up like a dog this morning,—never so much as washed himself at the river.  Why, he’s coming here!  Whatever does he want?’

‘The lad?’

‘No, the farmer.’

Mr. Shepherd’s heavy tread was heard below, and, as Alfred said, Ellen had only to hold her tongue for them be able to hear his loud tones telling Mrs. King that the glass was falling, and his hay in capital order, and his hands short, and asking whether her boy Harold would come and help in the hay-field between the post times.  Mrs. King gave a ready answer that the boy would be well pleased, and the farmer promised him his victuals and sixpence for the day.  ‘Your lass wouldn’t like to come too, I suppose, eh?’

Ellen flushed with indignation.  She go a hay-making!  Her mother was civilly making answer that her daughter was engaged with her sick brother, and besides—had her work for Mrs. Price, which must be finished off.  The farmer, saying he had not much expected her, but thought she might like a change from moping over her needle, went off.

Ellen did not feel ready to forgive him for wanting to set her to field-work.  There is some difference between being fine and being refined, and in Ellen’s station of life it is very difficult to hit the right point.  To be refined is to be free from all that is rough, coarse, or ungentle; to be fine, is to affect to be above such things.  Now Ellen was really refined in her quietness and maidenly modesty, and there was no need for her to undertake any of those kinds of tasks which, by removing young girls from home shelter, do sometimes help to make them rude and indecorous; but she was fine, when she gave herself a little mincing air of contempt, as if she despised the work and those who did it.  Lydia Grant, who worked so steadily and kept to herself so modestly, that no one ventured a bold word to her as she tossed her hay, was just as refined as Ellen King behind her white blinds, ay, or as Jane Selby herself in her terraced garden.  Refinement is in the mind that loves whatsoever is pure, lovely, and of good report; finery is in disdaining what is homely or humble.

Boys of all degrees are usually, when they are good for anything, the greatest enemies of the finery tending to affectation; and Alfred at once began to make a little fun of his sister, and tell her it would be a famous thing for her, he believed she had quite forgotten how to run, and did not know a rake from a fork when she saw it.  He knew she was longing for a ride in the waggon, if she would but own it.

Ellen used to be teased by this kind of joking; but she was too glad to see Alfred well enough so to entertain himself, to think of anything but pleasing him, so she answered good-humouredly that Harold must make hay for them all three to-day, no doubt but he would be pleased enough.

He was heard trotting home at this moment, and whistling as he hitched up the pony at the gate, and ran in with the letter-bag, to snap up his breakfast while the letters were sorted.

‘Here, let me have them,’ called Alfred, and they were glad he should do it, for he was the quickest of the family at reading handwriting; but he was often too ill to attend to it, and more often the weary fretfulness and languor of his state made him dislike to exert himself, so it was apt to depend on his will or caprice.

‘Look sharp, Alf!’ hallooed out Harold, rushing up-stairs with the bags in one hand, and his bread-and-butter in the other.  ‘If you find a letter for that there Ragglesford, I don’t know what I shall do to you!  I must be back in no time for the hay!’

And he had bounced down-stairs again before Ellen had time to scold him for making riot enough to shake Alfred to pieces.  He was a fine tall stout boy, with the same large fully open blue eyes, high colour, white teeth, and light curly hair, as his brother and sister, but he was much more sunburnt.  If you saw him with his coat off, he looked as if he had red gloves and a red mask on, so much whiter was his skin where it was covered; and he was very strong for his age, and never had known what illness was.  The brothers were very fond of each other, but since Alfred had been laid up, they had often been a great trial to each other—the one seemed as little able to live without making a noise, as the other to endure the noise he made; and the sight of Harold’s activity and the sound of his feet and voice, vexed the poor helpless sufferer more than they ought to have done, or than they would had the healthy brother been less thoughtless in the joy of his strength.

To-day, however, all was smooth.  Alfred did not feel every tread of those bounding limbs like a shock to his poor diseased frame; and he only laughed as he unlocked the leathern bag, and dealt out the letters, putting all those for the Lady Jane Selby, Miss Selby, and the servants, into their own neat little leathern case with the padlock, and sorting out the rest, with some hope there might be one from Matilda, who was a very good one to write home.  There was none from her, but then there was none for Ragglesford, and that was unexpected good luck.  If the old housekeeper left in charge had been wicked enough to get her newspaper that day, Alfred felt that in Harold’s place he should be sorely tempted to chuck it over the hedge.  Ellen looked as if he had talked of murdering her, and truly such a breach of trust would have been a very grievous fault.

‘The Reverend—what’s his name? the Reverend Marcus Cope, Friarswood, near Elbury,’ read Alfred; ‘one, two, three letters, and a newspaper.  Yes, and this long printed-looking thing.  Who is he, Ellen?’

‘What did you say?’ said Ellen, who was busy shaking her mother’s bed, and had not heard at the first moment, but now turned eagerly; ‘what did you say his name was?’

‘The Reverend Marcus Cope,’ repeated Alfred.  ‘Is that another new parson?’

‘Why, did not we tell you what a real beautiful sermon the new clergyman preached on Sunday?  Mr. Cope, so that’s his name.  I wonder if he is come to stay.—Mother,’ she ran to the head of the stairs, ‘the new clergyman’s name is the Reverend Mr. Marcus Cope.’

‘He don’t live at Ragglesford, I hope!’ cried Harold, who regarded any one at the end of that long lane as his natural enemy.

‘No, it only says Friarswood,’ said Ellen.  ‘You’ll have to find out where he lives, Harold.’

‘Pish! it will take me an hour going asking about!’ said Harold impatiently.  ‘He must have his letters left here till he chooses to come for them, if he doesn’t know where he lives.’

‘No, no, Harold, that won’t do,’ said Mrs. King.  ‘You must take the gentleman his letters, and they’ll be sure to know at the Park, or at the Rectory, or at the Tankard, where he lodges.  Well, it will be a real comfort if he is come to stop.’

So Harold went off with the letters and the pony, and Ellen and her mother exchanged a few words about the gentleman and his last Sunday’s sermon, and then Ellen went to dust the shop, and put out the bread, while her mother attended to Alfred’s wound, the most painful part of the day to both of them.

It was over, however, and Alfred was resting afterwards when Harold cantered home as hard as the pony could or would go, and came racing up to say, ‘I’ve seen him!  He’s famous!  He stood out in the road and met me, and asked for his letters, and he’s to be at the Parsonage, and he asked my name, and then he laughed and said, “Oh!  I perceive it is the royal mail!”  I didn’t know what he was at, but he looked as good-humoured as anything.  Halloo! give me my old hat, Nell—that’s it!  Hurrah! for the hay-waggon!  I saw the horses coming out!’

And off he went again full drive; and Alfred did nothing worse than give a little groan.

Ellen had enough to do in wondering about Mr. Cope.  News seemed to belong of right to the post-office, and it was odd that he should have preached on Sunday, and now it should be Tuesday, without anything having been heard of him, not even from Miss Jane; but then the young lady had been fluttered by the strange boy, and Alfred had been so fretful, that it might have put everything out of her head.

Friarswood was used to uncertainty about the clergyman.  The Rector had fallen into such bad health, that he had long been unable to do anything, and always hoping to get better, he had sent different gentlemen to take the services, first one and then another, or had asked the masters at Ragglesford to help him; but it was all very irregular, and no one had settled down long enough to know the people or do much good in visiting them.  My Lady, as they all called Lady Jane, was as sorry as any one could be, and she tried what she could do by paying a very good school-master and mistress, and giving plenty of rewards; but nothing could be like the constant care of a real good clergyman, and the people were all the worse for the want.  They had the church to go to, but it was not brought home to them.  The Rector had been obliged at last to go abroad, one of the Ragglesford gentlemen had performed the service for the ensuing Sundays, until now there seemed to be a chance that this new clergyman was coming to stay.

This interested Alfred less than his sister.  His curiosity was chiefly about the strange lad; and when he was moved to his place by the window he turned his eyes anxiously to make him out in the line of hay-makers, two fields off, as they shook out the grass to give it the day’s sunshine.  He knew them all, the ten women, with their old straw bonnets poked down over their faces, and deep curtains sewn on behind to guard their necks; the farm men come in from their other work to lend a hand, three or four boys, among whom he could see Harold’s white shirt sleeves, and sometimes hear his merry laugh, and he was working next to the figure in brown faded-looking tattered array, which Alfred suspected to belong to the strange boy.  So did Ellen.  ‘Ah!’ she said, ‘Harold ye scraped acquaintance with that vagabond-looking boy; I wish I had warned him against it, but I suppose he would only have done it all the more.’

‘You want to make friends with him yourself, Ellen!  We shall have you nodding to him next!  You are as curious about him as can be!’ said Alfred slyly.

‘Me!  I never was curious about nothing so insignificant,’ said Ellen.  ‘All I wish is, that that boy may not be running into bad company.’

The hay-fields were like an entertainment on purpose for Alfred all day; he watched the shaking of the brown grass all over the meadows in the morning, and the farmer walking over it, and smelling it, and spying up to guess what would come of the great rolling towers of grey clouds edged with pearly white, soft but dazzling, which varied the intense blue of the sky.

Then he watched all the company sit or lie down on the shady side of the hedge, under the pollard-willows, and Tom Boldre the shuffler and one or two more go into the farm-house, and come out with great yellow-ware with pies in them, and the little sturdy-looking kegs of beer, and two mugs to go round among them all.  There was Harold lying down, quite at his ease, close to the strange boy; Alfred knew how much better that dinner would taste to him than the best with the table-cloth neatly spread in his mother’s kitchen; and well did Alfred remember how much more enjoyment there was in such a meal as that, than in any one of the dainties that my Lady sent down to tempt his sickly appetite.  And what must pies and beer be to the wanderer who had eaten the crust so greedily the day before!  Then, after the hour’s rest, the hay-makers rose up to rake the hay into beds ready for the waggons.  Harold and the stranger were raking opposite to each other, and Alfred could see them talking; and when they came into the nearer hay-field, he saw Harold put up his hand, and point to the open window, as if he were telling the other lad about the sick boy who was lying there.

He was so much absorbed in thus watching, that he did not pay much heed to what interested his mother and sister—the reports which came by every customer about the new clergyman, who, it appeared, had been staying in the next parish till yesterday, when he had moved into the Rectory; and Mrs. Bonham, the butcher’s wife, reported that the Rectory servants said he was come to stay till their master came back.  All this and much more Mrs. King heard and rehearsed to Ellen, while Alfred lay, sometimes reading the ‘Swiss Robinson,’ sometimes watching the loading of the wains, as they creaked slowly through the fields, the horses seeming to enjoy the work, among their fragrant provender, as much as the human kind.  When five o’clock struck, Harold gave no signs of quitting the scene of action; and Mrs. King, in much anxiety lest the letters should be late, sent Helen to get the pony ready, while she herself went into the field to call the boy.

Very unwilling he was to come—he shook his shoulders, and growled and grumbled, and said he should be in plenty of time, and he wished the post was at the bottom of the sea.  Nothing but his mother’s orders and the necessity of the case could have made him go at all.  At last he walked off, as if he had lead in his feet, muttering that he wished he had not some one to be always after him.  Mrs. King looked at the grimy face of his disreputable-looking companion, and wondered whether he had put such things into his head.

Very cross was Harold as he twitched the bridle out of Ellen’s hand, threw the strap of the letter-bag round his neck, and gave such a re-echoing switch to the poor pony, that Alfred heard it up-stairs, and started up to call out, ‘For shame, Harold!’

Harold was ashamed: he settled himself in the saddle and rode off, but Alfred had not the comfort of knowing that his ill-humour was not being vented upon the poor beast all the way to Elbury.  Alfred had given a great deal of his heart to that pony, and it made him feel helpless and indignant to think that it was ill-used.  Those tears of which he was ashamed came welling up into his eyes as he lay back on his pillow; but they were better tears than yesterday’s—they were not selfish.

‘Never mind, Alfy,’ said Ellen, ‘Harold’s not a cruel lad; he’ll not go on, if he was cross for a bit.  It is all that he’s mad after that boy there!  I wish mother had never let him go into the hay-field to meet bad company!  Depend upon it, that boy has run away out of a Reformatory!  Sleeping out at night!  I can’t think how Farmer Shepherd could encourage him among honest folk!’

‘Well, now I think of it, I should not wonder if he had,’ said Mrs. King.  ‘He is the dirtiest boy that ever I did see!  Most likely; I wish he may do no mischief to-night!’

Harold came home in better humour, but a fresh vexation awaited him.  Mrs. King would not let him go to the hay-home supper in the barn.  The men were apt to drink too much and grow riotous; and with her suspicions about his new friend, she thought it better to keep him apart.  She was a spirited woman, who would be minded, and Harold knew he must submit, and that he had behaved very ill.  Ellen told him too how much Alfred had been distressed about the pony, and though he would not shew her that he cared, it made him go straight up-stairs, and with a somewhat sheepish face, say, ‘I say, Alf, the pony’s all right.  I only gave him one cut to get him off.  He’d never go at all if he didn’t know his master.’

‘He’d go fast enough for my voice,’ said Alfred.

‘You know I’d never go for to beat him,’ continued Harold; ‘but it was enough to vex a chap—wasn’t it?—to have Mother coming and lugging one off from the carrying, and away from the supper and all.  Women always grudge one a bit of fun!’

‘Mother never grudged us cricket, nor nothing in reason,’ said Alfred.  ‘Lucky you that could make hay at all!  And what made you so taken up with that new boy that Ellen runs on against, and will have it he’s a convict?’

‘A convict! if Ellen says that again!’ cried Harold; ‘no more a convict than she is.’

‘What is he, then?  Where does he come from?’