Friarswood Post Office

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.

CHAPTER XI—BETTER DAYS FOR PAUL

Paul’s reading was a great prize to Alfred, for he soon grew tired himself; his sister could not spare time to read to him, and if she did, she went mumbling on like a bee in a bottle.  Her mother did much the same, and Harold used to stumble and gabble, so that it was horrible to hear him.  Such reading as Paul’s was a new light to them all, and was a treat to Ellen as she worked as much as to Alfred; and Paul, with hands as clean as Alfred’s, was only too happy to get hold of a book, and infinitely enjoyed the constant supply kept up by Miss Selby, to make up for her not coming herself.

Then came the making out the accounts, a matter dreaded by all the family.  Ellen and Alfred both used to do the sums; but as they never made them the same, Mrs. King always went by some reckoning of her own by pencil dots on her thumb-nail, which took an enormous time, but never went wrong.  So the slate and the books came up after tea, one night, and Ellen set to work with her mother to pick out every one’s bill.  There might be about eight customers who had Christmas bills; but many an accountant in a London shop would think eight hundred a less tough business than did the King family these eight; especially as there was a debtor and creditor account with four, and coals, butcher’s meat, and shoes for man and horse, had to be set against bread, tea, candles, and the like.

One pound of tea, 3s. 6d., that was all very well; but an ounce and a half of the same made Ellen groan, and look wildly at the corner over Alfred’s bed, as if in hopes she should there see how to set it down, so as to work it.

‘Fourpence, all but—’ said a voice from the arm-chair by the fire.

Ellen did not take any particular heed, but announced the fact that three shillings were thirty-six pence, and six was forty-two.  Also that sixteen ounces were one pound, and sixteen drams one ounce; but there she got stuck, and began making figures and rubbing them out, as if in hopes that would clear up her mind.  Mrs. King pecked on for ten minutes on her nail.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘Paul’s right; it is fourpence.’

‘However did you do it?’ asked Ellen.

‘As 16 to 1.5, so 42,’ quoth Paul quickly.  ‘Three halves into 42; 21 and 42 is 63; 63 by 16, gives 3 and fifteen-sixteenths.  You can’t deduct a sixteenth of a penny, so call it fourpence.’

Ellen and Alfred were as wise as to the working as they were before.

Next question—Paul’s answer came like the next line in the book—Mrs. King proved him right, and so on till she was quite tired of the proofs, and began to trust him.  Alfred asked how he could possibly do such things, which seemed to him a perfect riddle.

‘I should have had my ears pretty nigh pulled off if I took five minutes to work that in my head,’ said Paul.  ‘But I’ve forgotten things now; I could do it faster once.’

‘I’m sure you hadn’t need,’ said Mrs. King; ‘it’s enough to distract one’s senses to count so fast.  All in your poor head too!’

‘And I’ve got to write them all out to-morrow,’ said Ellen dismally; ‘I must wait till dark, or I shan’t set a stitch of work.  I wish people would pay ready money, and then one wouldn’t have to set down their bills.  Here’s Mr. Cope, bread—bread—bread, as long as my arm!’

‘If you didn’t mind, maybe I could save you the trouble, Miss Ellen,’ said Paul.

‘Did you ever make out a bill?’ asked Mrs. King.

‘Never a real one; but every Thursday I used to do sham ones.  Once I did a jeweller’s bill for twelve thousand pounds and odd!  It is so long since I touched a pen, that may be I can’t write; but I should like to try.’

Ellen brought a pen, and the cover of a letter; and hobbling up to the table, he took the pen, cleared it of a hair that was sticking in it, made a scratch or two weakly and ineffectually, then wrote in a neat clear hand, without running up or down, ‘Friarswood, Christmas.’

‘A pretty hand as ever I saw!’ said Mrs. King.  ‘Well, if you can write like that, and can be trusted to make no mistakes, you might write out our bills; and we’d be obliged to you most kindly.’

And so Paul did, so neatly, that when the next evening Mr. Cope walked in with the money, he said, looking at Harold, ‘Ah! my ancient Saxon, I must make my compliments to you: I did not think you could write letters as well as you can carry them.’

‘’Twas Paul did it, Sir,’ said Harold.

‘Yes, Sir; ’twas Paul,’ said Mrs. King.  ‘The lad is a wonderful scholar: he told off all the sums as if they was in print; and to hear him read—’tis like nothing I ever heard since poor Mrs. Selby, Miss Jane’s mother.’

‘I saw he had been very well instructed—in acquaintance with the Bible, and the like.’

‘And, Sir, before I got to know him for a boy that would not give a false account of himself, I used to wonder whether he could have run away from some school, and have friends above the common.  If you observe, Sir, he speaks so remarkably well.’

Mr. Cope had observed it.  Paul spoke much better English than did even the Kings; though Ellen was by way of being very particular, and sometimes a little mincing.

‘You are quite sure it is not so?’ he said, a little startled at Mrs. King’s surmise.

‘Quite sure now, Sir.  I don’t believe he would tell a falsehood on no account; and besides, poor lad!’ and she smiled as the tears came into her eyes, ‘he’s so taken to me, he wouldn’t keep nothing back from me, no more than my own boys.’

‘I’m sure he ought not, Mrs. King,’ said the Curate, ‘such a mother to him as you have been.  I should like to examine him a little.  With so much education, he might do something better for himself than field-labour.’

‘A very good thing it would be, Sir,’ said Mrs. King, looking much cheered; ‘for I misdoubt me sometimes if he’ll ever be strong enough to gain his bread that way—at least, not to be a good workman.  There! he’s not nigh so tall as Harold; and so slight and skinny as he is, going about all bent and slouching, even before his illness!  Why, he says what made him stay so long in the Union was that he looked so small and young, that none of the farmers at Upperscote would take him from it; and so at last he had to go on the tramp.’

Mr. Cope went up-stairs, and found Ellen, as usual, at her needle, and Paul in the arm-chair close by Alfred, both busied in choosing and cutting out pictures from Matilda’s ‘Illustrated News,’ with which Harold ornamented the wall of the stair-case and landing.  Mr. Cope sat down, and made them laugh with something droll about the figures that were lying spread on Alfred.

‘So, Paul,’ he said, ‘I find Mrs. King has engaged you for her accountant.’

‘I wish I could do anything to be of any use,’ said Paul.

‘I’ve half a mind to ask you some questions in arithmetic,’ said Mr. Cope, with his merry eyes upon the boy, and his mouth looking grave; ‘only I’m afraid you might puzzle me.’

‘I can’t do as I used, Sir,’ said Paul, rather nervously; ‘I’ve forgotten ever so much; and my head swims.’

The slate was lying near; Mr. Cope pushed it towards him, and said, ‘Well, will you mind letting me see how you can write from dictation?’

And taking up one of the papers, he read slowly several sentences from a description of a great fire, with some tolerably long-winded newspaper words in them.  When he paused, and asked for the slate, there it all stood, perfectly spelt, well written, and with all the stops and capitals in the right places.

‘Famously done, Paul!  Well, and do you know where this place was?’ naming the town.

Paul turned his eyes about for a moment, and then gave the name of a county.

‘That’ll do, Paul.  Which part of England?’

‘Midland.’

And so on, Mr. Cope got him out of his depth by asking about the rivers, and made him frown and look teased by a question about a battle fought in that county.  If he had ever known, he had forgotten, and he was weak and easily confused; but Mr. Cope saw that he had read some history and learnt some geography, and was not like some of the village boys, who used to think Harold had been called after Herod—a nice namesake, truly!

‘Who taught you all this, Paul?’ he said.  ‘You must have had a cleverer master than is common in Unions.  Who was he?’

‘He was a Mr. Alcock, Sir.  He was a clever man.  They said in the House that he had been a bit of a gentleman, a lawyer, or a clerk, or something, but that he could never keep from the bottle.’

‘What! and so they keep him for a school-master?’

‘He was brought in, Sir; he’d got that mad fit that comes of drink, Sir, and was fresh out of gaol for debt.  And when he came to, he said he’d keep the school for less than our master that was gone.  He couldn’t do anything else, you see.’

‘And how did he teach you?’

‘He knocked us about,’ said Paul, drawing his shoulders together with an unpleasant recollection; ‘he wasn’t so bad to me, because I liked getting my tasks, and when he was in a good humour, he’d say I was a credit to him, and order me in to read to him in the evening.’

‘And when he was not?’

‘That was when he’d been out.  They said he’d been at the gin-shop; but he used to be downright savage,’ said Paul.  ‘At last he never thought it worth while to teach any lessons but mine, and I used to hear the other classes; but the inspector came all on a sudden, and found it out one day when he’d hit a little lad so that his nose was bleeding, and so he was sent off.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Going on for a year,’ said Paul.

‘Didn’t the inspector want you to go to a training-school?’ said Alfred.

‘Yes; but the Guardians wouldn’t hear of it.’

‘Did you wish it?’ asked Mr. Cope.

‘I liked my liberty, Sir,’ was the answer; and Paul looked down.

‘Well, and what you do think now you’ve tried your liberty?’

Paul didn’t make any answer, but finding that good-humoured face still waiting, he said slowly, ‘Why, Sir, it was well-nigh the worst of all to find I was getting as stupid as the cows.’

Mr. Cope laughed, but not so as to vex him; and added, ‘So that was the way you learnt to be a reader, Paul.  Can you tell me what books you used to read to this master?’

Paul paused; and Alfred said, ‘“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Sir; he told us the story of that.’

‘Yes,’ said Paul; ‘but that wasn’t all: there was a book about Paris, and all the people in the back lanes there; and a German prince who came, and was kind.’

‘You must not tell them stories out of that book, Paul,’ said Mr. Cope quickly, for he knew it was a very bad one.

‘No, Sir,’ said Paul; ‘but most times it was books he called philosophy, that I couldn’t make anything of—no story, and all dull; but he was very savage if I got to sleep over them, till I hated the sight of them.’

‘I’m glad you did, my poor boy,’ said Mr. Cope.  ‘But one thing more.  Tell me how, with such a man as this, you could have learnt about the Bible and Catechism, as you have done.’

‘Oh,’ said Paul, ‘we had only the Bible and Testament to read in the school, because they were the cheapest; and the chaplain asked us about the Catechism every Sunday.’

‘What was the chaplain’s name?’

Paul was able, with some recollection, to answer; but he knew little about the clergyman, who was much overworked, and seldom able to give any time to the paupers.

Three days after, Mr. Cope again came into the post-office.

‘Well, Mrs. King, I suppose you don’t need to be told that our friend Paul has spoken nothing but truth.  The chaplain sends me his baptismal registry, for which I asked.  Just seventeen he must be—a foundling, picked up at about three weeks old, January 25th, 1836.  They fancy he was left by some tramping musicians, but never were able to trace them—at least, so the chaplain hears from some of the people who remember it.  Being so stunted, and looking younger than he is, no farmer would take him from the House, and the school-master made him useful, so he was kept on till the grand exposure that he told us of.’