Kitabı oku: «Friarswood Post Office», sayfa 7
Here was home at last. How comfortable looked the bright light, as the cottage door was thrown open at the sound of the horse’s feet!
‘Well, Harold!’ cried Ellen eagerly, ‘is anything the matter?’
‘No,’ he said, beginning to get sulky because he felt he was wrong; ‘only Peggy lost a shoe—’
‘Lame?’
‘No, I took her to the smith.’
‘Give me Alfred’s ointment, please, before you put her up. He is in such a way about it, and we can’t put him to bed—’
‘Haven’t got it.’
‘Not got it! O Harold!’
‘I should like to know how to be minding such things when pony loses a shoe, and such weather! 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! I didn’t think he’d have done it,’ said Mrs. King sorrowfully.
‘He’s been loitering after some mischief,’ exclaimed Alfred. ‘Taking his pleasure—and I must stay all this time in pain! Serve him right to send him back to Elbury.’
Mrs. King had a great mind to have done so; but when she looked at the torrents of rain that streamed against the window, and thought how wet Harold must be already, and of the fatal illnesses that had been begun by being exposed to such weather, she was afraid to venture a boy with such a family constitution, and turning back to Alfred, she said, ‘I am very sorry, Alfred, but it can’t be helped; I can’t send Harold out in the rain again, or we shall have him ill too.’
Poor Alfred! it was no trifle to have suffered all day, and to be told the pain must go on all night. His patience and all his better thoughts were quite worn away, and he burst into tears of anger and cried out that it was very hard—his mother cared for Harold more than for him, and nobody minded it, if he lay in such pain all night.
‘You know better than that, dear,’ said his poor mother, sadly grieved, but bearing it meekly. ‘Harold shall go as soon as can be to-morrow.’
‘And what good will that be to-night?’ grumbled Alfred. ‘But you always did put Harold before me. However, I shall soon be dead and out of your way, that’s all!’
Mrs. King would not make any answer to this speech, knowing it only made him worse. She went down to see about Harold, an additional offence to Alfred, who muttered something about ‘Mother and her darling.’
‘How can you, Alfred, speak so to Mother?’ cried Ellen.
‘I’m sure every one is cross enough to me,’ returned Alfred.
‘Not Mother,’ said Ellen. ‘She couldn’t help it.’
‘She won’t send Harold out again, though; I’m sure I’d have gone for him.’
‘You don’t know what the rain was,’ said Ellen.
‘Well, he should have minded; but you’re all against me.’
‘You’ll be sorry by-and-by, Alfred; this isn’t like the way you talk sometimes.’
‘Some one else had need to be sorry, not me.’
Perhaps, in the midst of his captious state, Alfred was somewhat pacified by hearing sounds below that made him certain that Harold was not escaping without some strong words from his mother.
They were not properly taken. Harold was in no mood of repentance, and the consciousness that he had been behaving most unkindly, only made him more rough and self-justifying.
‘I can’t help it! I can’t be a slave to run about everywhere, and remember everything—pony losing her shoe, and nigh tumbling down with me, and Ross at the post so cross for nothing!’
‘You’ll grieve at the way you have used your poor brother one of these days, Harold,’ quietly answered his mother, so low, that Alfred could not hear through the floor. ‘Now, you’ll please to go to bed.’
‘Ain’t I to have no supper?’ said Harold in a sullen voice, with a great mind to sit down in the chimney-corner in defiance.
‘I shall give you something hot when you are in bed. If I treated you as you deserve, I should send you to Mr. Blunt’s this moment; but I can’t afford to have you ill too, so go to bed this moment.’
His mother could still master him by her steadiness and he went up, muttering that he’d no notion of being treated like a baby, and that he would soon shew her the difference: he wasn’t going to be made a slave to Alfred, and ’twas all a fuss about that stuff!
He did fancy he said his prayers; but they could not have been real ones, for he was no softer when his mother came to his bedside with a great basin of hot gruel. He said he hated such nasty sick stuff, and grunted savagely when, with a look that ought to have gone to his heart, she asked if he thought he deserved anything better.
Yet she did not know of the shooting gallery, nor of his false excuses. If he had not been deceiving her, perhaps he might have been touched.
‘Well, Harold,’ she said at last, after taking the empty basin from him, and picking up his wet clothes and boots to dry them by the fire, ‘I hope as you lie there you’ll come to a better mind. It makes me afraid for you, my boy. It is not only your brother you are sinning against, but if you are a bad boy, you know Who will be angry with you. Good-night.’
She lingered, but Harold was still hard, and would neither own himself sorry, nor say good-night.
When she passed his bed at the top of the stairs again, after hanging up the things by the fire, he had his head hidden, and either was, or feigned to be, asleep.
Alfred’s ill-temper was nearly gone, but he still thought himself grievously injured, and was at no pains to keep himself from groaning and moaning all the time he was being put to bed. In fact, he rather liked to make the most of it, to shew his mother how provoking she was, and to reproach Harold for his neglect.
The latter purpose he did not effect; Harold heard every sound, and consoled himself by thinking what an intolerable work Alfred was making on purpose. If he had tried to bear it as well as possible, his brother would have been much more likely to be sorry.
Alfred was thinking too much about his misfortunes and discomforts to attend to the evening reading, but it soothed him a little, and the pain was somewhat less, so he did fall asleep, so uneasily though, that Mrs. King put off going to bed as late as she could.
It was nearly eleven, and Ellen had been in bed a long time, when Alfred started, and Mrs. King turned her head, at the click of the wicket gate, and a step plashing on the walk. She opened the little window, and the gust of wet wind puffed the curtains, whistled round the room, and almost blew out the candle.
‘Who’s there?
‘It’s me, Mrs. King! I’ve got the stuff,’ called a hoarse tired voice.
‘Well, if ever! It’s Paul Blackthorn!’ exclaimed Mrs. King. ‘Thank ye kindly. I’ll come and let you in.’
‘Paul Blackthorn!’ cried Alfred. ‘Been all the way to Elbury for me! O Mother, bring him up, and let me thank him! But how ever did he know?’ The tears came running down Alfred’s cheeks at such kindness from a stranger. Mrs. King had hurried down-stairs, and at the threshold stood a watery figure, holding out the gallipot.
‘Oh! thank you, thank you; but come in! 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. ‘Good-night to you.’
‘No, no, that won’t do. I must have you sit down and get dry,’ said Mrs. King, nursing up the remains of the fire; and as Paul’s day-garments served him for night-gear likewise, he could hardly help accepting the invitation, and spreading his chilled hands to the fire.
As to Mrs. King’s feelings, it must be owned that, grateful as she was, it was rather like sitting opposite to the heap in the middle of Mr. Shepherd’s farm-yard.
‘Would you take that?’ she said, holding out a three-penny piece. ‘I’d make it twice as much if I could, but times are hard.’
‘No, no, Missus, I didn’t do it for that,’ said Paul, putting it aside.
‘Then you must have some supper, that I declare.’
And she brought out a slice of cold bacon, and some bread, and warmed some beer at the fire. She would go without bacon and beer herself to-morrow, but that was nothing to her. It was a real pleasure to see the colour come into Paul’s bony yellow cheeks at the hearty meal, which he could not refuse; but he did not speak much, for he was tired out, and the fire and the beer were making him very sleepy.
Alfred rapped above with the stick that served as a bell. It was to beg that Paul would come and be thanked; and though Mrs. King was a little afraid of the experiment, she did ask him to walk up for a moment.
Grunt went he, and in rather an unmannerly way, he said, ‘I’d rather not.’
‘Pray do,’ said Mrs. King; ‘I don’t think Alfred will sleep easy without saying thank you.’
So Paul complied, and in a most ungainly fashion clumped up-stairs and stood at the door. He had not forgotten his last reception, and would not come a step farther, though Alfred stretched out his hand and begged him to come in.
Alfred could say only ‘Thank you, I never thought any one would be so kind.’
And Paul made gruff reply, ‘Ye’re very welcome,’ turned about as if he were running away, and tumbled down-stairs, and out of the house, without even answering Mrs. King’s ‘Good-night.’
Harold had wakened at the sounds. He heard all, but he chose to seem to be asleep, and, would you believe it? he was only the more provoked! Paul’s exertion made his neglect seem all the worse, and he was positively angry with him for ‘going and meddling, and poking his nose where he’d no concern. Now he shouldn’t be able to get the stuff to-morrow, and so make it up; and of course mother would go and dock Paul’s supper out of his dinner!’
If such reflections were going on upon one side of the partition, there were very different thoughts upon the other. The stranger’s kindness had done more than relieve Alfred’s pain: the warm sense of thankfulness had softened his spirit, and carried off his selfish fit. He knew not how kind people were to him, and how ungrateful he had been to punish his innocent mother and sister, and so much to magnify a bit of thoughtlessness on Harold’s part; to be angry with his mother for not driving him out when she thought it might endanger his health and life, and to say such cruel things on purpose to wound her. Alfred felt himself far more cruel than he had even thought Harold.
And was this his resolution? Was this the shewing the sincerity of his repentance through his conduct in illness? Was this patience? Was it brotherly love? Was it the taking up the cross so as to bear it like his Saviour, Who spoke no word of complaining, no murmur against His tormentors?
How he had fallen! How he had lost himself! It was a bitter distress, and threw him almost into despair. He prayed over and over to be forgiven, and began to long for some assurance of pardon, and for something to prevent all his right feelings and wishes from thus seeming to slip away from his grasp at the first trial.
He told his mother how sorry he was; and she answered, ‘Dear lad, don’t fret about it. It was very hard for you to bear, and you are but learning, you see, to be patient.’
‘But I’m not learning if I don’t go on no better,’ sighed Alfred.
‘By bits you are, my boy,’ she said; ‘you are much less fractious now than you used to be, only you could not stand this out-of-the-way trial.’
Alfred groaned.
‘Do you remember what our Saviour said to St. Peter?’ said his mother; ‘“Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me afterwards.” You see, St. Peter couldn’t bear his cross then, but he went on doing his best, and grieving when he failed, and by-and-by he did bear it almost like his Master. He got to be made strong out of weakness.’
There was some comfort to Alfred in this; but he feared, and yet longed, to see Mr. Cope, and when he came, had scarcely answered his questions as to how he felt, before he said, ‘O Sir, I’ve been a bad boy again, and so cross to them all!’
‘O Sir,’ said Ellen, who could not bear for him to blame himself, ‘I’m sure it was no wonder—he’s so distracted with the pain, and Harold getting idling, and forgetting to bring him the ointment. Why, even that vagabond boy was so shocked, that he went all the way to Elbury that very night for it. I told Alfred you’d tell him that anybody would be put out, and nobody would think of minding what he said.’
‘Nobody, especially so kind a sister,’ said Mr. Cope, smiling; ‘but that is not what Alfred is thinking of.’
‘No, Sir,’ said Alfred; ‘their being so good to me makes it all the worse.’
‘I quite believe so; and you are very much disappointed in yourself.’
‘Oh yes, Sir, just when I wanted to be getting patient, and more like—’ and his eyes turned to the little picture, and filled with tears.
Mr. Cope said somewhat of what his mother had said that he was but a scholar in patience, and that he must take courage, though he had slipped, and pray for new strengthening and refreshing to go on in the path of pain his Lord had hallowed for him.
Perhaps the words reminded Alfred of the part of the Catechism where they occur, for he said, ‘Oh, I wish I was confirmed! If I could but take the Holy Sacrament, to make me stronger, and sure of being forgiven—’
‘You shall—before—’ said Mr. Cope, speaking eagerly, but becoming choked as he went on. ‘You are one whom the Church would own as ready and desirous to come, though you cannot be confirmed. You should at once—but you see I am not yet a priest; I have not the power to administer the Holy Communion; but I trust I shall be one in the spring, and then, Alfred—Or if you should be worse, I promise you that I would bring some one here. You shall not go without the Bread of Life.’
Alfred felt what he said to the depths of his heart, but he could not say anything but ‘Thank you, Sir.’
Mr. Cope, still much moved, laid his hand upon that of the boy. ‘So, Alfred, we prepare together. As I hope and long to prepare myself to have that great charge committed to me, which our Saviour Christ gave to His Apostles; so you prepare for the receiving of that Bread and that Cup which will more fully unite you to Him, and join your suffering to what He bore for you.’
‘How shall I, Sir?’ murmured Alfred.
‘I will do my best to shew you,’ said Mr. Cope; ‘but your Catechism tells you best. Think over that last answer.’
Alfred’s face lighted sweetly as he went over it. ‘Why, that’s what I can’t help doing, Sir; I can’t forget my faults, I’m so afraid of them; and I’m sure I do want to lead a new life, if I didn’t keep on being so bad; and thinking about His dying is the best comfort I have. Nor I’m sure I don’t bear ill-will to nobody, only I suppose it is not charity to run out at poor Mother and Ellen when one’s put out.’
‘Perhaps that is what you want to learn,’ said Mr. Cope, ‘and to get all these feelings deepened, and more earnest and steadfast. If the long waiting does that for you, it will be good, and keep you from coming lightly to the Holy Feast.’
‘Oh, I could not do that!’ exclaimed Alfred. ‘And may I think that all my faults will be taken away and forgiven?’
‘All you repent of, and bring in faith—’
‘That is what they say at church in the Absolution,’ said Alfred thoughtfully.
‘Rather it is what the priest says to them,’ said Mr. Cope; ‘it is the applying the promise of forgiveness that our Saviour bought. I may not yet say those words with authority, Alfred, but I should like to hope that some day I may speak them to you, and bring rest from the weight at your heart.’
‘Oh! I hope I may live to that!’ said Alfred.
‘You shall hear them, whether from me or from another,’ said Mr. Cope, ‘that is, if God will grant us warning. But you need not fear, Alfred, if you thoroughly repent, and put your full faith in the great Sacrifice that has been offered for your sins and the sins of all the world. God will take care of His child, and you already have His promise that He will give you all that is needful for your salvation.’
CHAPTER VIII—CONFIRMATION
If Harold had known all the consequences of his neglect, perhaps he would have been more sorry for it than as yet he had chosen to be.
The long walk and the warm beer and fire sent Paul to his hay-nest so heavy with sleep, that he never stirred till next morning he was wakened by Tom Boldre, the shuffler, kicking him severely, and swearing at him for a lazy fellow, who stayed out at night and left him to do his work.
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.
It was really nearly eight o’clock, and Paul’s work had been neglected, which was enough to cause displeasure; and besides, Boldre had heard Paul coming home past eleven, and the farmer insisted on knowing what he had been doing.
Under all his rags, Paul was a very proud boy, and thus asked, he would not tell, but stood with his legs twisted, looking very sulky.
‘No use asking him,’ cried Mrs. Shepherd’s shrill voice at the back door; ‘why, don’t ye hear that Mrs. Barker’s hen-roost has been robbed by Dick Royston and two or three more on ’em?’
‘I never robbed!’ cried Paul indignantly.
‘None of your jaw,’ said the farmer angrily. ‘If you don’t tell me this moment where you’ve been, off you go this instant. Drinking at the Tankard, I’ll warrant.’
‘No such thing, Sir,’ said Paul. ‘I went to Elbury after some medicine for a sick person.’
Somehow he had a feeling about the house opposite, which would not let him come out with the name in such a scene.
‘That’s all stuff,’ broke in Mrs. Shepherd, ‘I don’t believe one word of it! Send him off; take my advice, Farmer, let him go where he comes from; Ellen King told me he was out of prison.’
Paul flushed crimson at this, and shook all over. He had all but turned to go, caring for nothing more at Friarswood; but just then, John Farden, one of the labourers, who was carrying out some manure, called out, ‘No, no, Ma’am. Sure enough he did go to Elbury to Dr. Blunt’s. I was on the road myself, and I hears him. “Good-night,” says I. “Good-night,” says he. “Where be’est going?” says I. “To doctor’s,” says he, “arter some stuff for Alfred King.”
‘Yes,’ said Paul, speaking more to Farden than to his master, ‘and then Mrs. King gave me some supper, and that was what made me so late.’
‘She ought to be ashamed of herself, then,’ said Mrs. Shepherd spitefully, ‘having a vagabond scamp like that drinking beer at her house at that time of night. How one is deceived in folks!’
‘Well, what are you doing here?’ cried the farmer, turning on Paul angrily; ‘d’ye mean to waste any more of the day?’
So Paul was not turned off, and had to go straight to his work. It was well he had had so good a supper, for he had not a moment to snatch a bit of breakfast. It so happened that his work was to go with John Farden, who was carrying out the manure in the cart. Paul had to hold the horse, while John forked it out into little heaps in the field. John was a great big powerful man, with a foolish face, not a good workman, nor a good character, or he would not have been at that farm. He had either never been taught anything, or had forgotten it all; he never went near church; he had married a disreputable wife, and had two or three unruly children, who were likely to be the plagues of their parents and the parish, but not a whit did John heed; he did not seem to have much more sense than to work just enough to get food, lodging, beer, and tobacco, to sleep all night, and doze all Sunday. There was not any malice nor dishonesty in him; but it was terrible that a man with an immortal soul should live so nearly the life of the brute beasts that have no understanding, and should never wake to the sense of God or of eternity.
He was not a man of many words, and nothing passed for a long time but shouts of hoy, and whoa, and the like, to the horse. Paul went heavily on, scarce knowing what he was about; there was a stunned jaded feel about him, as if he were hunted and driven about, a mere outcast, despised by every one, even by the Kings, whose kindness had been his only ray of brightness. Not that his senses or spirits were alive enough even to be conscious of pain or vexation; it was only a dull dreary heedlessness what became of him next; and, quick clever boy as he had been in the Union, he did not seem to have a bit more sense, thought, or feeling, than John Farden.
John Farden was the first to break the silence: ‘I wouldn’t bide,’ said he.
Paul looked up, and muttered, ‘I have nowhere to go.’
‘Farmer uses thee shameful,’ repeated John. ‘Why don’t thee cut?’
Paul saw the smoke of Mrs. King’s chimney. That had always seemed like a friend to him, but it came across him that they too thought him a runaway from prison, and he felt as if his only bond of fellowship was gone. But there was something else, too; and he made answer, ‘I’ll bide for the Confirmation.’
‘Eh?’ said John, ‘what good’ll that do ye?’
‘Help me to be a good lad,’ said Paul, who knew John Farden would not enter into any other explanation.
‘Why, what’ll they do to ye?’
‘The Bishop will put his hand on me and bless me,’ said Paul; and as he said the words there was hope and refreshment coming back. He was a child of God, if no other owned him.
‘Whoy,’ said Farden, much as he might have spoken to his horse, ‘rum sort of a head thou’st got! Thee’ll never go up to Bishop such a guy!’
‘Can’t help it,’ said Paul rather sullenly; ‘it ain’t the clothes that God looks at.’
John scanned him all over, with his face looking more foolish than ever in the puzzle he felt.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘and what wilt get by it?’
‘God’s grace to do right, I hope,’ said Paul; then he added, out of his sad heart, ‘It’s bad enough here, to be sure. It would be a bad look-out if one hoped for nothing afterwards.’
Somehow John’s mind didn’t take in the notion of afterwards, and he did not go on talking to Paul. Perhaps there was a dread in his poor dull mind of getting frightened out of the deadly stupefied sleep it was bound in.
But that bit of talk had done Paul great good, by rousing him to the thought of what he had to hope for. There was the Confirmation nigh at hand, and then on beyond there was rest; and the words came into his mind, ‘There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.’
Poor, poor boy! He was very young to have such yearnings towards the grave, and well-nigh to wish he lay as near to it as Alfred King, so he might have those loving tender hands near him, those kind voices round him. Paul had gone through a great deal in these few months; and, used to good shelter and regular meals, he was less inured to bodily hardship than many a cottage boy. His utter neglect of his person was telling on him; he was less healthy and strong than he had been, and though high spirits, merriment, and the pleasure of freedom and independence, had made all light to him in the summer, yet now the cold weather, with his insufficient food and scanty clothing, was dulling him and deadening him, and hard work and unkind usage seemed to be grinding his very senses down. To be sure, when twelve o’clock came, he went up into the loft, ate his bit of dry bread, and said his prayers, as he had not been able to do in the morning, and that made him feel less forlorn and downcast for a little while; but then as he sat, he grew cold, and numb, and sleepy, and seemed to have no life in him, but to be moving like a horse in a mill, when Boldre called him down, and told him not to be idling there.
The theft in Mrs. Barker’s poultry-yard was never traced home to any one, but the world did not the less believe Dick Royston and Jesse Rolt to have been concerned in it. Indeed, they had been drinking up some of their gains when Harold met them at the shooting-gallery: and Mrs. Shepherd would not put it out of her head that Paul Blackthorn was in the secret, and that if he did really go for the medicine as he said, it was only as an excuse for carrying the chickens to some receiver of stolen goods. She had no notion of any person doing anything out of pure love and pity. Moreover, it is much easier to put a suspicion into people’s heads than out again; and if Paul’s whole history and each day’s doings had been proved to her in a court of justice, she would still have chiefly remembered that she had always thought ill of him, and that Ellen King had said he was a runaway convict, and so she would have believed him to the end.
Ellen had long ago forgotten that she had said anything of the kind; and though she still held her nose rather high when Paul was near, she would have answered for his honesty as readily as for that of her own brothers. But hers had not been the charity that thinketh no evil, and her idle words had been like thistle-down, lightly sent forth, but when they had lighted, bearing thorns and prickles.
Those thorns were galling poor Paul. Nobody could guess what his glimpses of that happy, peaceful, loving family were to him. They seemed to him like a softer, better kind of world, and he looked at their fair faces and fresh, well-ordered garments with a sort of reverence; a kind look or greeting from Mrs. King, a mere civil answer from Ellen, those two sights of the white spirit-looking Alfred, were like the rays of light that shone into his dark hay-loft. Sometimes he heard them singing their hymns and psalms on a Sunday evening, and then the tears would come into his eyes as he leant over the gate to listen. And, as if it was because Ellen kept at the greatest distance from him, he set more store by her words and looks than those of any one else, was always glad when she served him in the shop, and used to watch her on Sunday, looking as fresh as a flower in her neat plain dress.
And now to hear that she not only thought meanly of him, which he knew well enough, but thought him a thief, a runaway, and an impostor coming about with false tales, was like a weight upon his sunken spirits, and seemed to take away all the little heart hard usage had left him, made him feel as if suspicious eyes were on him whenever he went for his bit of bread, and took away all his peace in looking at the cottage.
He did once take courage to say to Harold, ‘Did your sister really say I had run away from gaol?’
‘Oh, nobody minds what our Ellen says,’ was the answer.
‘But did she say so?’
‘I don’t know, I dare say she did. She’s so fine, that she thinks no one that comes up-stairs in dirty shoes worth speaking to. I’m sure she’s the plague of my life—always at me.’
That was not much comfort for Paul. He had other friends, to be sure. All the boys in the place liked him, and were very angry with the way the farmer treated him, and greatly to their credit, they admired his superior learning instead of being jealous of it. Mrs. Hayward, the sexton’s wife, the same who had bound up his hand when he cut it at harvest, even asked him to come in and help her boys in the evenings with what they had to prepare for Mr. Cope. He was not sorry to do so sometimes. The cottage was a slatternly sort of place, where he did not feel ashamed of himself, and the Haywards were mild good sort of folks, from whom he was sure never to hear either a bad or an unkind word; though he did not care for them, nor feel refreshed and helped by being with them as he did with the Kings.
John Farden, too, was good-natured to him, and once or twice hindered Boldre from striking or abusing him; he offered him a pipe once, but Paul could not smoke, and another time brought him out a pint of beer into the field. Mrs. Shepherd spied him drinking it from her upper window, and believed all the more that he got money somehow, and spent it in drink.
So the time wore on till the Confirmation, all seeming like one dull heavy dream of bondage; and as the weather became colder, the poor boy seemed to have no power of thinking of anything, but of so getting through his work as to avoid violence, to keep himself from perishing with cold, and not to hurt his chilblains more than he could help.
All his quick intellect and good instruction seemed to have perished away, and the last time he went to Mr. Cope’s, he sat as if he were stupid or asleep, and when a question came to him, sat with his mouth open like silly Bill Pridden.
Mr. Cope knew him too well not to feel, as he wrote the ticket, that there were very few of whom he could so entirely from his heart say ‘Examined and APPROVED,’ as the poor lonely outcast foundling, Paul Blackthorn, who could not even tell whether he were fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen, but could just make sure that he had once been caned by old Mr. Haynes, who went away from the Union twelve years ago.
‘Do you think you can keep the ticket safe if I give it you now, Paul?’ asked Mr. Cope, recollecting that the cows might sup upon it like his Prayer-book.
