Charlotte M. Yonge

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ King was too good a nurse not to be awakened by his first movement, and she came to him, gave him some cold tea, and settled his pillow so as to make him more comfortable; and when he begged her to let in a little more air, she went to open the window wider, and relieve the closeness of the little room. She had learnt while living with Lady Jane that night air is not so dangerous as some people fancy; and it was an infinite relief to Alfred when the lattice was thrown back, and the cool breeze came softly in, with the freshness of the dew, and the delicious scent of the hay-field. ”

“ Harold grumbled dreadfully that his mother could not spare him to go harvesting beyond their own tiny quarter of an acre of wheat. The post made it impossible for him to go out to work like the labourers; and besides, his mother did not think he had gained much good in hay-time, and wished to keep him from the boys.
Very hard he thought it; and to hear him grumble, any one would have thought Mrs. King was a tyrant far worse than Farmer Shepherd, working the flesh off his bones, taking away the fun and the payment alike. ”

“ King wrote to Matilda, ‘I had rather see Ellen married to a good religious man than to any one, and I do not know one I can be so sure of as Paul, nor one that is so like a son to me; and if he has no friends belonging to him, that is better than bad friends.’ And Ellen herself, from looking on him as a mere boy, as she had done at their first acquaintance, had come to thinking no one ever had been so wise or so clever, far less so good, certainly not so fond of her—so her answer was no great wonder. ”

“ 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?’
‘His name is Paul Blackthorn,’ said Harold; ‘and he’s the queerest chap I ever came across. ”

“ Cope and Mrs. King were both of one mind, that this was hard measure. So it was. Man’s measure always is either over hard or over soft, because he cannot see all sides at once. Now they saw Paul’s side, his simplicity, and his suffering; the chaplain had only seen the chances of his conveying the seeds of ungodly teaching to the workhouse children; he could not tell that the pitch which Paul had not touched by his own will, had not stuck by him—probably owing to that very simplicity which had made him so helpless in common life. ”

“ At last the crying began to spend itself, and he turned and looked up. There was Alfred’s little picture of the Crucified still on the wall, and the words under it, ‘For us!’ Paul’s eye fell on it; and somehow it brought to mind what Alfred had said to him on Christmas Day. There was One Who had no home on earth; there was One Who had made Himself an outcast and a wanderer, and Who had not where to lay His Head. Was not He touched with a fellow-feeling for the lonely boy? Would He not help him to bear his friendless lot as a share of His own Cross? ”

“ 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. ”

“ I’ve been a bad boy to Mother, and at church; and I’ve been cross to Ellen, and quarrelled with Harold; and I was so audacious at my Lady’s, they couldn’t keep me. I never did want really to be good. Oh! I know I shall go to the bad place!’
‘No, Alfred, not if you so repent, that you can hold to our Blessed Saviour’s promise. There is a fountain open for sin and all uncleanness.’
‘It is very good of Him,’ said Alfred, a little more tranquilly, not in the half-sob in which he had before spoken.
‘Most merciful!’ said Mr. Cope. ”

“ I hope he is not run away from anywhere.’
‘You’re as bad as Ellen, mother,’ cried Harold, ‘who will have it that he’s out of prison.’
‘No, not that,’ said Mrs. King; ‘but it did cross me whether he could have run away from school, and if his friends were in trouble for him.’
‘He never had any friends,’ said Harold, ‘nor he never ran away. He’s nothing but a foundling. They picked him up under a blackthorn bush when he was a baby, with nothing but a bit of an old plaid shawl round him.’
‘Did they ever know who he belonged to?’ asked Alfred. ”

“ There is a very fine tall youth first. As Betsey Hardman tells her mother, ‘she never saw such a one for being fine-growed and stately to look at, since poor Charles King when he wore his best wig.’ A very nice open honest face, and as merry a pair of blue eyes as any in the parish, does Harold wear, nearly enough to tell you that, if in these six years it would be too much to say he has never done anything to vex his mother, yet in the main his heart is in the right place—he is a very good son, very tender to her, and steady and right-minded. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lady Jane made a gesture as if Mary King were a hopelessly weak good-natured woman; and shaking her head at her with a sort of lady-like vexation, ordered the coachman to drive on.
My Lady was put out. No wonder. She was a very sensible, managing woman herself, and justly and up-rightly kind to all her dependants; and she expected every one else to be sternly and wisely kind in the same pattern. Mrs. King was one whom she highly esteemed for her sense and good judgment, and she was the more provoked with her for any failure in these respects. ”

“ I declare I’m as wet—!’ said Harold angrily, as he saw his sister clasp her hands in distress, and the tears come in her eyes.
‘Is Harold come safe?’ called Mrs. King from above.
‘Is the ointment come?’ cried Alfred, in a piteous pain-worn voice.
Harold stamped his foot, and bolted to the stable to put the pony away.
‘It’s not come,’ said Ellen, coming up-stairs, very sadly.
‘He has forgot it.’
‘Forgot it!’ cried Alfred, raising himself passionately. ‘He always does forget everything! He don’t care for me one farthing! I believe he wants me dead!’
‘This is very bad of him! ”

“ Blackthorn turns very red, and goes down the path to meet her, and she takes his arm, and Harold takes Lucy, and Mr. Brown Miss King.
Very nice that bride looks, with her hair so glossy under her straw bonnet trimmed with white, her pretty white shawl, and quiet purple silk dress, her face rather flushed, but quiet-looking, as if she were growing more like her mother, with something of her sense and calmness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This was over the cow-house in the gable end; and in the dark opening sat Paul, his feet on the top step of the ladder, and Cæsar, the yard-dog, lying by his side, his white paws hanging down over the edge, his sharp white muzzle and grey prick ears turned towards his friend, and his eyes casting such appealing looks, that he was getting more of the hunch of bread than probably Paul could well spare.
‘How has he ever got the dog up the ladder?’ cried Harold. ”

“ He quietly obeyed her, by getting him up-stairs, and putting him into his own bed, the first in which Paul had lain down for more than four months. Then Mrs. King sent Harold out for some gin; she thought hot spirits and water the only chance of bringing back any life after such a dreadful chill; and she and Ellen kept on warming flannels and shawls to restore some heat, and to stop the trembling that shook the bed, so that Alfred felt it, even in the next room, where he lay with the door open, longing to be able to help, and wishing to understand what could have happened. ”

“ Paul stumbled to his feet, quite confused by the pain, and feeling for his shoes in the dark loft. The shuffler scarcely gave him an instant to put them on, but hunted him down-stairs, telling him the farmer was there, and he would catch it.
It would do nobody any good to hear the violent way in which Mr. Shepherd abused the boy. He was a passionate man, and no good labourers liked to work with him because of his tongue. With such grown men as he had, he was obliged to keep himself under some restraint, but this only incited him to make up for it towards the poor friendless boy. ”

“ Yes, come in! you must have something hot, and get dried.’
Paul shambled in very foot-sore. He looked as if he were made of moist mud, and might be squeezed into any shape, and streams of rain were dropping from each of his many rags.
‘Well, I don’t know how to thank you—such a night! But he’ll sleep easy now. How did you come to think of it?’
‘I was just coming home from the parson’s, and I met Harold putting up Peggy, in a great way because he’d forgotten. That’s all, Missus,’ said Paul, looking shamefaced. ”

“ Paul and Ellen have stood and knelt in an earnest reverent spirit, making their vows to one another and before God, and His blessing has been spoken upon them to keep them all their lives through.
It is with a good heart of hope that Mr. Cope speaks that blessing, knowing that, as far as human eye can judge, here stands a man who truly feareth the Lord, and beside him a woman with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.
They are leaving the church now, the bridegroom and his bride, arm in arm, but they turn from the path to the wicket, and Harold will not let even Matilda follow them. ”

“ Cope will know him?’ exclaimed Harold, jumping leap-frog fashion on George Grant’s back.
‘The maids will take him for some strange gentleman,’ exclaimed Jem Hayward; ‘and why, bless me, he’s washed, I do declare!’ as a streak of light from the door fell on Paul’s visage.
‘No, you don’t mean it,’ broke out Charles. ‘Let’s look! yes, I protest, why, the old grime between his eyes is gone after all. ”