Friarswood Post Office

Chapter I--The Strange Lad

'Goodness! If ever I did see such a pig!' said Ellen King, as she mounted the stairs. 'I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs!'

'Who?' said a voice from the bedroom.

'Why, that tramper who has just been in to buy a loaf! He is a perfect pig, I declare! I only wonder you did not find of him up here! The police ought to hinder such folk from coming into decent people's shops! There, you may see him now!'

'Is that he upon the bridge--that chap about the size of our Harold?'

'Yes. Did you ever see such a figure? His clothes aren't good enough for a scarecrow--and the dirt, you can't see that from here, but you might sow radishes in it!'

'Oh, he's swinging on the rail, just as I used to do. Put me down, Nelly; I don't want to see any more.' And the eyes filled with tears; there was a working about the thin cheeks and the white lips, and a long sigh came out at last, 'Oh, if I was but like him!'

'Like him! I'd wish something else before I wished that,' said Ellen. 'Don't think about it, Alfred dear; here are Miss Jane's pictures.'

'I don't want the pictures,' said Alfred wearily, as he laid his head down on his white pillow, and shut his eyes because they were hot with tears.

Ellen looked at him very sadly, and the feeling in her own mind was, that he was right, and nothing could make up for the health and strength that she knew her mother feared would never return to him.

There he lay, the fair hair hanging round the white brow with the furrows of pain in it, the purple-veined lids closed over the great bright blue eyes, the long fingers hanging limp and delicate as a lady's, the limbs stretched helplessly on the couch, whither it cost him so much pain to be daily moved. Who would have thought, that not six months ago that poor cripple was the merriest and most active boy in the parish?

The room was not a sad-looking one. There were spotless white dimity curtains round the lattice window; and the little bed, and the walnut of the great chest, and of the doors of the press-bed on which Alfred lay, shone with dark and pale grainings. There was a carpet on the floor, and the chairs had chintz cushions; the walls were as white as snow, and there were pretty china ornaments on the mantel-piece, many little pictures hanging upon the walls, and quite a shelf of books upon the white cloth, laid so carefully on the top of the drawers. A little table beside Alfred held a glass with a few flowers, a cup with some toast and water, a volume of the 'Swiss Family Robinson;' and a large book of prints of animals was on a chair where he could reach it.

A larger table was covered with needle-work, shreds of lining, scissors, tapes, and Ellen's red work-box; and she herself sat beside it, a very nice-looking girl of about seventeen, tall and slim, her lilac dress and white collar fitting beautifully, her black apron sitting nicely to her trim waist, and her light hair shining, like the newly-wound silk of the silk-worm, round her pleasant face; where the large, clear, well-opened blue eyes, and the contrast of white and red on the cheek, were a good deal like poor Alfred's, and gave an air of delicacy.

Their father had been, as their mother said, 'the handsomest coachman who ever drove to St. James's;' but he had driven thither once too often; he had caught his death of cold one bitter day when Lady Jane Selby was obliged to go to a drawing-room, and had gone off in a deep decline fourteen years ago, when the youngest of his five children was not six weeks old.

The Selby family were very kind to Mrs. King, who, besides her husband's claims on them, had been once in service there; and moreover, had nursed Miss Jane, the little heiress, Ellen's foster- sister. By their help she had been able to use her husband's savings in setting up a small shop, where she sold tea, tobacco and snuff, tape, cottons, and such little matters, besides capital bread of her own baking, and various sweet-meats, the best to the taste of her own cooking, the prettiest to the eye brought from Elbury. Oranges too, and apples, shewed their yellow or rosy cheeks at her window in their season; and there was sometimes a side of bacon, displaying under the brown coat the delicate pink stripes bordering the white fat. Of late years one pane of her window had been fitted up with a wooden box, with a slit in it on the outside, and a whole region round it taken up with printed sheets of paper about 'Mails to Gothenburg,-- Weekly Post to Vancouver's Island'--and all sorts of places to which the Friarswood people never thought of writing.

Altogether, she throve very well; and she was a good woman, whom every one respected for the pains she took to bring up her children well. The eldest, Charles, had died of consumption soon after his father, and there had been much fear for his sister Matilda; but Lady Jane had contrived to have her taken as maid to a lady who usually spent the winter abroad, and the warm climate had strengthened her health. She was not often at Friarswood; but when she came she looked and spoke like a lady--all the more so as she gave herself no airs, but was quite simple and humble, for she was a very good right- minded young woman, and exceedingly fond of her home and her good mother.

Ellen would have liked to copy Matilda in everything; and as a first step, she went for a year to a dress-maker; but just as this was over, Alfred's illness had begun; and as he wanted constant care and attendance, it was thought better that she should take in work at home. Indeed Alfred was such a darling of hers, that she could not have endured to go away and leave him so ill.

Alfred had been a most lively, joyous boy, with higher spirits than he quite knew what to do with, all fun and good-humour, and yet very troublesome and provoking. He and his brother Harold were the monkeys of the school, and really seemed sometimes as if they could not sit still, nor hinder themselves from making faces, and playing tricks; but that was the worst of them--they never told untruths, never did anything mean or unfair, and could always be made sorry when they had been in fault. Their old school-mistress liked them in spite of all the plague they gave her; and they liked her too, though she had tried upon them every punishment she could devise.

Little Miss Jane, the orphan whom the Colonel and Mrs. Selby had left to be brought up by her grandmother, had a great fancy that Alfred should be a page; and as she generally had her own way, he went up to the Grange when he was about thirteen years old, and put on a suit thickly sown with buttons. But ere the gloss of his new jacket had begun to wear off, he had broken four wine-glasses, three cups, and a decanter, all from not knowing where he was going; he had put sugar instead of salt into the salt-cellars at the housekeeper's dining- table, that he might see what she would say; and he had been caught dressing up Miss Jane's Skye terrier in one of the butler's clean cravats; so, though Puck, the aforesaid terrier, liked him better than any other person, Miss Jane not excepted, a regular complaint went up of him to my Lady, and he was sent home. He was abashed, and sorry to have vexed mother and disappointed Miss Jane; but somehow he could not be unhappy when he had Harold to play with him again, and he could halloo as loud as they pleased, and stamp about in the garden, instead of being always in mind to walk softly.

There was the pony too! A new arrangement had just been made, that the Friarswood letters should be fetched from Elbury every morning, and then left at the various houses of the large straggling district that depended on that post-office. All letters from thence must be in the post before five o'clock, at which time they were to be sent in to Elbury. The post-master at Elbury asked if Mrs. King's sons could undertake this; and accordingly she made a great effort, and bought a small shaggy forest pony, whom the boys called 'Peggy,' and loved not much less than their sisters.

It was all very well in the summer to take those two rides in the cool of the morning and evening; but when winter came on, and Alfred had to start for Elbury in the tardy dawn of a frosty morning, or still worse, in the gloom of a wet one, he did not like it at all. He used to ride in looking blue and purple with the chill; and though he went as close to the fire as possible, and steamed like the tea- kettle while he ate his breakfast and his mother sorted the letters, he had not time to warm himself thoroughly before he had to ride off to leave them--two miles further altogether; for besides the bag for the Grange, and all the letters for the Rectory, and for the farmers, there was a young gentlemen's school at a great old lonely house, called Ragglesford, at the end of a very long dreary lane; and many a day Alfred would have given something if those boys' relations would only have been so good as, with one consent, to leave them without letters.

It would not have mattered if Alfred had been a stouter boy; but his mother had always thought he had his poor father's constitution, and therefore wished him to be more in the house; but his idleness had prevented his keeping any such place. It might have been the cold and wet, or, as Alfred thought, it might have been the strain he gave himself one day when he was sliding on the ice and had a fall; but one morning he came in from Elbury very pale, and hobbling, as he said his hip hurt him so much, that Harold must take the letters round for him.

Harold took them that morning, and for many another morning and evening besides; while poor Alfred came from sitting by the fire to being a prisoner up-stairs, only moved now and then from his own bed to lie outside that of his mother, when he could bear it. The doctor came, and did his best; but the disease had thrown itself into the hip joint, and it was but too plain that Alfred must be a great sufferer for a long time, and perhaps a cripple for life. But how long might this life be? His mother dared not think. Alfred himself, poor boy, was always trying with his whole might to believe himself getting better; and Ellen and Harold always fancied him so, when he was not very bad indeed; but for the last fortnight he had been decidedly worse, and his heart and hopes were sinking, though he would not own it to himself, and that and the pain made his spirits fail so, that he had been more inclined to be fretful than any time since his illness had begun.

His view from the window was a pleasant one; and when he was pretty well, afforded him much amusement. The house stood in a neat garden, with green railings between it and the road, over which Alfred could see every one who came and went towards Elbury, and all who had business at the post-office, or at Farmer Shepherd's. Opposite was the farm-yard; and if nothing else was going on, there were always cocks and hens, ducks and turkeys, pigs, cows, or horses, to be seen there; and the cow-milking, or the taking the horses down to the water, the pig-feeding, and the like, were a daily amusement. Sloping down from the farm-yard, the ground led to the river, a smooth clear stream, where the white ducks looked very pretty, swimming, diving, and 'standing tail upwards;' and there was a high- arched bridge over it, where Alfred could get a good view of the carriages that chanced to come by, and had lately seen all the young gentlemen of Ragglesford going home for the summer holidays, making such a whooping and hurrahing, that the place rang again; and beyond, there were beautiful green meadows, with a straight path through them, leading to a stile; and beyond that, woods rose up, and there was a little glimpse of a stately white house peeping through them. Hay-making was going on merrily in the field, under the bright summer sun, and the air was full of the sweet smell of the grass, but there was something sultry and oppressive to the poor boy's feelings; and when he remembered how Farmer Shepherd had called him to lend a hand last year, and how happy he had been tossing the hay, and loading the waggon, a sad sick feeling crept over him; and so it was that the tears rose in his eyes, and he made his sister lay him back on the pillow, for he did not wish to see any more.

Ellen worked and thought, and wanted to entertain him, but could not think how. Presently she burst out, however, 'Oh, Alfred! there's Harold coming running back! There he is, jumping over that hay-cock- -not touched the ground once--another--oh! there's Farmer Shepherd coming after him!'

'Hold your tongue,' muttered Alfred moodily, as if each of her words gave him unbearable pain; and he hid his face in the pillow.

Ellen kept silence for ten minutes, and then broke forth again, 'Now then, Alfred, you will be glad! There's Miss Jane getting over the stile.'

'I don't want Miss Jane,' grumbled Alfred; and as Ellen sprang up and began smoothing his coverings, collecting her scraps, and tidying the room, already so neat, he growled again, 'What a racket you keep!'

'There, won't you be raised up to see her? She does look so pretty in her new pink muslin, with a double skirt, and her little hat and feather, that came from London; and there's Puck poking in the hay-- he's looking for a mouse! And she's showering the hay over him with her parasol! Oh, look, Alfred!' and she was going to lift him up, but he only murmured a cross 'Can't you be quiet?' and she let him alone, but went on talking: 'Ah, there's Puck's little tail wriggling out--hinder-end foremost--here he comes--they are touching their hats to her now, the farmer and all, and she nods just like a little queen! She's got her basket, Alfred. I wonder what she has for you in it! Oh dear, there's that strange boy on the bridge! She won't like that.'

'Why, what would he do to her? He won't bite her,' said Alfred.

'Oh, if he spoke to her, or begged of her, she'd be so frightened! There, he looked at her, and she gave such a start. You little vagabond! I'd like to--'

'Stuff! what could he do to her, with all the hay-field and Farmer Shepherd there to take care of her? What a fuss you do make!' said poor Alfred, who was far too miserable just then to agree with any one, though at almost any other time he would have longed to knock down any strange boy who did but dare to pass Miss Selby without touching his cap; and her visits were in general the very light of his life.

They were considered a great favour; for though old Lady Jane Selby was a good, kind-hearted person, still she had her fancies, and she kept her young grand-daughter like some small jewel, as a thing to be folded up in a case, and never trusted in common. She was afraid to allow her to go about the village, or into the school and cottages, always fancying she might be made ill, or meet with some harm; but Mrs. King being an old servant, whom she knew so well, and the way lying across only two meadows beyond Friarswood Park, the little pet was allowed to go so far to visit her foster-mother, and bring whatever she could devise to cheer the poor sick boy.

Miss Jane, though of the same age as Ellen, and of course with a great deal more learning and accomplishment, had been so little used to help herself, or to manage anything, that she was like one much younger. The sight of the rough stranger on the bridge was really startling to her, and she came across the road and garden as fast as she could without a run; and the first thing the brother and sister heard, was her voice saying rather out of breath and fluttered, 'Oh, what a horrid-looking boy!'

Seeing that Mrs. King was serving some one in the shop, she only nodded to her, and came straight upstairs. Alfred raised up his head, and beheld the little fairy through the open door, first the head, and the smiling little face and slight figure in the fresh summer dress.

Miss Jane was not thought very pretty by strangers; but that dainty little person, and sweet sunny eyes and merry smile, and shy, kind, gracious ways, were perfect in the eyes of her grandmamma and of Mrs. King and her children, if of nobody else. Alfred, in his present dismal state, only felt vexed at a fresh person coming up to worry him, and make a talking; especially one whose presence was a restraint, so that he could not turn about and make cross answers at his will.

'Well, Alfred, how are you to-day?' said the sweet gay voice, a little subdued.

'Better, Ma'am, thank you,' said Alfred, who always called himself better, whatever he felt; but his voice told the truth better than his words.

'He's had a very bad night, Miss Jane,' said his sister; 'no sleep at all since two o'clock, and he is so low to-day, that I don't know what to do with him.'

Alfred hated nothing so much as to hear that he was low, for it meant that he was cross.

'Poor Alfred!' said the young lady kindly. 'Was it pain that kept you awake?'

'No, Ma'am--not so much--' said the boy.

Miss Jane saw he looked very sad, and hoped to cheer him by opening her basket. 'I've brought you a new book, Alfred. It is "The Cherry-stones." Have you finished the last?'

'No, Ma'am.'

'Did you like it?'

'Yes, Ma'am.'

But it was a very matter-of-course sort of Yes, and disappointed Miss Jane, who thought he would have been charmed with the 'Swiss Family Robinson.'

Ellen spoke: 'Oh yes, Alfred, you know you did like it. I heard you laughing to yourself at Ernest and the shell of soup. And Harold reads that; and 'tis so seldom he will look at a book.'

Jane did not like this quite as well as if Alfred had spoken up more; but she dived into her basket again, and brought out a neat little packet of green leaves, with some strawberries done up in it, and giving a little smile, she made sure that it would be acceptable.

Ellen thanked vehemently, and Alfred gave feeble thanks; but, unluckily, he had so set his mind upon raspberries, that he could not enjoy the thought of anything else. It was a sickly distaste for everything, and Miss Selby saw that he was not as much pleased as she meant him to be; she looked at him wistfully, and, half grieved, half impatient, she longed to know what he would really like, or if he were positively ungrateful. She was very young, and did not know whether it was by his fault or her mistake that she had failed to satisfy him.

Puck had raced up after her, and had come poking and snuffling round Alfred. She would have called him away lest he should be too much for one so weak, but she saw Alfred really did enjoy this: his hand was in the long rough coat, and he was whispering, 'Poor Puck,' and 'Good little doggie;' and the little hairy rummaging creature, with the bright black beads of eyes gleaming out from under his shaggy hair, was doing him more good than her sense and kindness, or Ellen's either.

She turned to the window, and said to Ellen, 'What a wild-looking lad that is on the bridge!'

'Yes, Miss Jane,' said Ellen; 'I was quite afraid he would frighten you.'

'Well, I was surprised,' said Jane; 'I was afraid he might speak to me; but then I knew I was too near friends for harm to come to me;' and she laughed at her own fears. 'How ragged and wretched he looks! Has he been begging?'

'No, Miss Jane; he came into the shop, and bought some bread. He paid for it honestly; but I never did see any one so dirty. And there's Alfred wishing to be like him. I knew you would tell him it is quite wicked, Miss Jane.'

It is not right, I suppose, to wish to be anything but what we are,' said Jane, rather puzzled by the appeal; 'and perhaps that poor beggar-boy would only like to have a nice room, and kind mother and sister, like you, Alfred.'

'I don't say anything against them!' cried the boy vehemently; 'but-- but--I'd give anything--anything in the world--to be able to run about again in the hay-field! No, don't talk to me, Ellen, I say--I hate them all when I see them there, and I forced to lie here! I wish the sun would never shine!'

He hid his eyes and ears in the pillow, as if he never wished to see the light again, and would hear nothing. The two girls both stood trembling. Ellen looked at Miss Selby, and she felt that she must say something. But what could she say?

With tears in her eyes she laid hold of Alfred's thin hand and tried to speak, choked by tears. 'Dear Alfred, don't say such dreadful things. You know we are all so sorry for you; but God sent it.'

Alfred gave a groan of utter distress, as if it were no consolation.

'And--and things come to do us good,' continued Miss Jane, the tears starting to her cheeks.

'I don't know what good it can do me to lie here!' cried Alfred.

'Oh, but, Alfred, it must.'

'I tell you,' exclaimed the poor boy, forgetting his manners, so that Ellen stood dismayed, 'it does not do me good! I didn't use to hate Harold, nor to hate everybody.'

'To hate Harold!' said Jane faintly.

'Ay,' said Alfred, 'when I hear him whooping about like mad, and jumping and leaping, and going on like I used to do, and never shall again.'

The tears came thick and fast, and perhaps they did him good.

'But, Alfred,' said Jane, trying to puzzle into the right thing, 'sometimes things are sent to punish us, and then we ought to submit quietly.'

'I don't know what I've done, then,' he cried angrily. 'There have been many worse than I any day, that are well enough now.'

'Oh, Alfred, it is not who is worse, but what one is oneself,' said Jane.

Alfred grunted.

'I wish I knew how to help you,' she said earnestly; 'it is so very sad and hard; and I dare say I should be just as bad myself if I were as ill; but do, pray, Alfred, try to think that nobody sent it but God, and that He must know best.'

Alfred did not seem to take in much comfort, and Jane did not believe she was putting it rightly; but it was time for her to go home, so she said anxiously, 'Good-bye, Alfred; I hope you'll be better next time--and--and--' She bent down and spoke in a very frightened whisper, 'You know when we go to church, we pray you may have patience under your sufferings.'

Then she sprang away, as if ashamed of the sound of her own words; but as she was taking up her basket and wishing Ellen good-bye, she saw that the strange lad had moved nearer the house, and timid little thing as she was, she took out a sixpence, and said, 'Do give him that, and ask him to go away.'

Ellen had no very great fancy for facing the enemy herself, but she made no objection; and looking down-stairs, she saw her brother Harold waiting while his mother stamped the letters, and she called to him, and sent him out to the boy.

He came back in a few moments so much amazed, that she could see the whites all round his eyes.

'He won't have it! He's a rum one that! He says he's no beggar, and that if the young lady would give him work, he'd thank her; but he wants none of her money, and he'll stand where he chooses!'

'Why didn't you lick him?' hallooed out Alfred's voice from his bed. 'Oh! if I--'

'Nonsense, Alfred!' cried Miss Jane, frightened into spirit; 'stand still, Harold! I don't mind him.'

And she put up her parasol, and walked straight out at the house door as bold as a little lioness, going on without looking to the right or left.

'If--' began Harold, clenching his fists--and Alfred raised himself upon his bed with flashing eyes to watch, as the boy had moved nearer, and looked for a moment as if he were going to grin, or say something impudent; but the quiet childish form stepping on so simply and steadily seemed to disarm him, and he shrunk back, left her to trip across the road unmolested, and stood leaning over the rail of the bridge, gazing after her as she crossed the hay-field.

Harold rode off with the letters; and Alfred lay gazing, and wondering what that stranger could be, counting the holes in his garments, and trying to guess at his history.

One good thing was, that Alfred was so much carried out of himself, that he was cheerful all the evening.