'What, Alfy dear? What is the matter?'
'What SHE says.'
'Who? Betsey Hardman? Dear dear Alf, is it anything dreadful?'
'That I shall die,' said Alfred, his eyes growing round with terror again. 'That Mr. Blunt said I couldn't last out the winter.'
'Dear Alfy, don't!' cried Ellen, throwing her arms round him, and kissing him with all her might; 'don't fancy it! She's always gossiping and gadding about, and don't know what she says, and she'd got no business to tell stories to frighten my darling!' she exclaimed, sobbing with agitation. 'I'm sure Mr. Blunt never said no such thing!'
'But Mother thinks it, Ellen.'
'She doesn't, she can't!' cried Ellen vehemently; 'I know she doesn't, or she could never go about as she does. I'll call her up and ask her, to satisfy you.'
'No, no, not while that woman is there!' cried Alfred, holding her by the dress; 'I'll not have HER coming up.'
Even while he spoke, however, Mrs. King was coming. Betsey had spied an old acquaintance on the way from church, and had popped out to speak to her, and Mrs. King caught that moment for coming up. She understood all, for she had been sitting in great distress, lest Alfred should be listening to every word which she was unable to silence, and about which Betsey was quite thoughtless. So many people of her degree would talk to the patient about himself and his danger, and go on constantly before him with all their fears, and the doctor's opinions, that Betsey had never thought of there being more consideration and tenderness shewn in this house, nor that Mrs. King would have hidden any pressing danger from the sick person; but such plain words had not yet passed between her and Mr. Blunt; and though she had long felt what Alfred's illness would come to, the perception had rather grown on her than come at any particular moment.
Now when Ellen, with tears and agitation, asked what that Betsey had been saying to frighten Alfred so, and when she saw her poor boy's look at her, and heard his sob, 'Oh, Mother!' it was almost too much for her, and she went up and kissed him, and laid him down less uneasily, but he felt a great tear fall on his face.
'It's not true, Mother, I'm sure it is not true,' cried Ellen; 'she ought-'
Mrs. King looked at her daughter with a sad sweet face, that stopped her short, and brought the sense over her too. 'Did he say so, Mother?' said Alfred.
'Not to me, dear,' she answered; 'but, Ellen, she's coming back! She'll be up here if you don't go down.'
Poor Ellen! what would she not have given for power to listen to her mother, and cry at her ease? But she was forced to hurry, or Betsey would have been half-way up-stairs in another instant. She was a hopeful girl, however, and after that 'not to me,' resolved to believe nothing of the matter. Mrs. King knelt down by her son, and looked at him tenderly; and then, as his eyes went on begging for an answer, she said, 'Dr. Blunt never told me there was no hope, my dear, and everything lies in God's power.'
'But you don't think I shall get well, Mother?'
'I don't feel as if you would, my boy,' she said, very low, and fondling him all the time. 'You've got to cough like Father and Charlie, and-though He might raise my boy up-yet anyhow, Alfy boy, if God sees it good for us, it WILL be good for us, and we shall be helped through with it.'
'But I'm not good, Mother! What will become of me?'
'Perhaps the hearing this is all out of God's mercy, to give you time to get ready, my dear. You are no worse now than you were this morning; you are not like to go yet awhile. No, indeed, my child; so if you don't put off any longer-'
'Mother!' called up Ellen. She was in despair. Betsey was not to be kept by her from satisfying herself upon Alfred's looks, and Mrs. King was only in time to meet her on the stairs, and tell her that he was so weak and low, that he could not be seen now, she could not tell how it would be when he had had his tea.
Ellen thought she had never had so distressing a tea-drinking in her life, as the being obliged to sit listening civilly to Betsey's long story about the trouble she had about a stocking of Mrs. Martin's that was lost in the wash, and that had gone to Miss Rosa Marlowe, because Mrs. Martin had her things marked with a badly-done K. E. M., and all that Mrs. Martin's Maria and all Miss Marlowe's Jane had said about it, and all Betsey's 'Says I to Mother,'-when she was so longing to be watching poor Alfred, and how her mother could sit so quietly making tea, and answering so civilly, she could not guess; but Mrs. King had that sense of propriety and desire to do as she would be done by, which is the very substance of Christian courtesy, the very want of which made Betsey, with all her wish to be kind, a real oppression and burthen to the whole party.
And where was Harold? Ellen had not seen him coming out of church, but meal-times were pretty certain to bring him home.
'Oh,' said Betsey, 'I'll warrant he is off to the merry orchard.'
'I hope not,' said Mrs. King gravely.
'He never would,' said Ellen, in anger.
'Ah, well, I always said I didn't see no harm in a lad getting a bit of pleasure.'
'No, indeed,' said Mrs. King. 'Harold knows I would not stint him in the fruit nor in the pleasure, but I should be much vexed if he could go out on a Sunday, buying and selling, among such a lot as meet at that orchard.'
'Well, I'm sure I don't know when poor folks is to have a holiday if not on a Sunday, and the poor boy must be terrible moped with his brother so ill.'
'Not doing thine own pleasure on My holy day,' thought Ellen, but she did not say it, for her mother could not bear for texts to be quoted at people. But her heart was very heavy; and when she went up with some tea to Alfred, she looked from the window to see whether, as she hoped, Harold might be in Paul's hay-loft, preferring going without his tea to being teased by Betsey. Paul sat in his loft, with his Bible on his knee, and his head on Caesar's neck.
'Alfred,' said Ellen, 'do you know where Harold is? Sure he is not gone to the merry orchard?'
'Is not he come home?' said Alfred. 'Oh, then he is! He is gone to the merry orchard, breaking Sunday with Dick Royston! And by-and-by he'll be ill, and die, and be as miserable as I am!' And Alfred cried as Ellen had never seen him cry.
CHAPTER VI-THE MERRY ORCHARD
Where was Harold?
Still the evening went on, and he did not come. Alfred had worn himself out with his fit of crying, and lay quite still, either asleep, or looking so like it, that when Betsey had finished her tea, and again began asking to see him, Ellen could honestly declare that he was asleep.
Betsey had bidden them good-bye, more than half affronted at not being able to report to her mother all about his looks, though she carried with her a basket of gooseberries and French beans, and Mrs. King walked all the way down the lane with her, and tried to shew an interest in all she said, to make up for the disappointment.
Maybe likewise Mrs. King felt it a relief to her uneasiness to look up and down the road, and along the river, and into the farm-yard, in the hope that Harold might be in sight; but nothing was to be seen on the road, but Master Norland, his wife, and baby, soberly taking their Sunday walk; nor by the river, except the ducks, who seemed to be enjoying their evening bath, and almost asleep on the water; nor in the yard, except Paul Blackthorn, who had come down from his perch to drive the horses in from the home-field, and shut the stable up for the night.
She could not help stopping a moment at the gate, and calling out to Paul to ask whether he had seen anything of Harold. He seemed to have a great mind not to hear, and turned very slowly with his shoulder towards her, making a sound like 'Eh?' as if to ask what she said.
'Have you seen my boy Harold?'
'I saw him in the morning.'
'Have you not seen him since? Didn't he go to church with you?'
'No; I don't go to Sunday school.'
'Was he there?'
She did not receive any answer.
'Do you know if many of the boys are gone to the merry orchard?'
'Ay.'
'Well, you are a good lad not to be one of them.'
> 'Hadn't got any money,' said Paul gruffly; but Mrs. King thought he said so chiefly from dislike to be praised, and that there had been some principle as well as poverty to keep him away.
'It might be better if no one had it on a Sunday,' she could not help sighing out as she looked anxiously along the lane ere turning in, and then said, 'My good lad, I don't want to get you to be telling tales, but it would set my heart at rest, and his poor brother's up there, if you could tell me he is not gone to Briar Alley.'
Paul turned up his face from the gate upon which he was leaning his elbows, and gazed for a moment at her sad, meek, anxious face, then exclaimed, 'I can't think how he could!'
Poor Paul! was it not crossing him how impossible it would seem to do anything to vex one who so cared for him?
'Then he is gone,' she said mournfully.
'They were all at him,' said Paul; 'and he said he'd never seen what it was like. Please don't take on, Missus; he's right kind and good- hearted, and wanted to treat me.'
'I had rather he had hearkened to you, my boy,' said Mrs. King.
'I don't know why he should do that,' said Paul, perhaps meaning that a boy who heeded not such a mother would certainly heed no one else. 'But please, Missus,' he added, 'don't beat him, for you made me tell on him.'
'Beat him! no,' said Mrs. King, with a sad smile; 'he's too big a boy for me to manage that way. I can't do more than grieve if he lets himself be led away.'
'Then I'd like to beat him myself if he grieves you!' burst out Paul, doubling up his brown fist with indignation.
'But you won't,' said Mrs. King gently; 'I don't want to make a quarrel among you, and I hope you'll help to keep him out of bad ways, Paul. I look to you for it. Good-night.'
Perhaps the darkness and her own warm feeling made her forget the condition of that hand; at any rate, as she said Good-night she took it in her own and shook it heartily, and then she went in.
Paul did not say Good-night in answer; but when she had turned away, his head went down between his two crossed arms upon the top of the gate, and he did not move for many many minutes, except that his shoulders shook and shook again, for he was sobbing as he had never sobbed since Granny Moll died. If home and home love were not matters of course to you, you might guess what strange new fountains of feeling were stirred in the wild but not untaught boy, by that face, that voice, that touch.
And Mrs. King, as she walked to her own door in the twilight, with bitter pain in her heart, could not help thinking of those from the highways and hedges who flocked to the feast set at naught by such as were bidden.
A sad and mournful Sunday evening was that to the mother and daughter, as each sat over her Bible. Mrs. King would not talk to Ellen, for fear of awakening Alfred; not that low voices would have done so, but Ellen was already much upset by what she had heard and seen, and to talk it over would have brought on a fit of violent crying; so her mother thought it safest to say nothing. They would have read their Bible to one another, but each had her voice so choked with tears, that it would not do.
That Alfred was sinking away into the grave, was no news to Mrs. King; but perhaps it had never been so plainly spoken to her before, and his own knowledge of it seemed to make it more sure; but broken- hearted as she felt, she had been learning to submit to this, and it might be better and safer for him, she thought, to be aware of his state, and more ready to do his best with the time left to him. That was not the freshest sorrow, or more truly a darker cloud had come over, namely, the feeling, so terrible to a good careful mother, that her son is breaking out of the courses to which she has endeavoured and prayed to bring him up-that he is casting off restraint, and running into evil that may be the beginning of ruin, and with no father's hand to hold him in.
O Harold, had you but seen the thick tears dropping on the walnut table behind the arm that hid her face from Ellen, you would not have thought your fun worth them!
That merry orchard was about three miles from Friarswood. It belonged to a man who kept a small public-house, and had a little farm, and a large garden, with several cherry trees, which in May were perfect gardens of blossoms, white as snow, and in August with small black fruit of the sort known as merries; and unhappily the fertile produce of these trees became a great temptation to the owner and to all the villagers around.
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.
Friarswood Post Office Page 7
