trifles, that she hardly knew how to get through it.
The doctor, Mr. Blunt, came, and he too felt the heat, having spent hours in going his rounds in the closeness and dust. He was a rough man, and his temper did not always hold out; he told Alfred sharply that he would have no whining, and when the boy moaned and winced more than he would have done on a good day, he punished him by not trying to be tender-handed. When Mrs. King said, perhaps a little lengthily, how much the boy had suffered that morning, the doctor, wearied out, no doubt, with people’s complaints, cut her short rather rudely, ‘Ay, ay, my good woman, I know all that.’
‘And can nothing be done, Sir, when he feels so sinking and weak?’
‘Sinking—he must feel sinking—nothing to do but to bear it,’ said Mr. Blunt gruffly, as he prepared to go. ‘Don’t keep me now;’ and as Alfred held up his hand, and made some complaint of the tightness of the bandage, he answered impatiently, ‘I’ve no time for that, my lad; keep still, and be glad you’ve nothing worse to complain of.’
‘Then you don’t think he is getting any better, Sir?’ said Mrs. King, keeping close to him. ‘I thought he was yesterday, and I wanted to speak to you. My oldest daughter thought if we could get him away to the sea, and—’
‘That’s all nonsense,’ said the hurried doctor; ‘don’t you spend your money in that way; I tell you nothing ever will do him any good.’
This was at the bottom of the stairs; and Mr. Blunt was off. He was the cleverest doctor for a good way round, and it was not easy to Mrs. King to secure his attendance. Her savings and Matilda’s were likely to melt away sadly in paying him, since she was just too well off to be doctored at the parish expense, and he was really a good and upright man, though wanting in softness of manner when he was hurried and teased. If Mrs. King had known that he was in haste to get to a child with a bad burn, she might have thought him less unkind in the short ungentle way in which he dashed her hopes. Alas! there had never been much hope; but she feared that Alfred might have heard, and have been shocked.
Ellen heard plainly enough, and her heart sank. She tried to look at her brother’s face, but he had put it out of sight, and spoke not a word; and she only could sit wondering what was the real drift of the cruel words, and whether the doctor meant to give no hope of recovery, or only to dissuade her mother from vainly trying change of air. Her once bright brother always thus! It was a sad thought, and yet she would have been glad to know he would be no worse; and Ellen’s heart was praying with all her might that he might have his health and happiness restored to him, and that her mother might be spared this bitter sorrow.
Alfred said nothing about the doctor’s visit, but he could eat no dinner, and did not think this so much the fault of his sickly taste, as of his mother’s potato-pie; he could not think why she should be so cross as to make that thing, when she knew he hated it; and as to poor Harold, Alfred would hardly let him speak or stir, without ordering Ellen down to tell him not to make such a row.
Ellen was thankful when Harold was fairly hunted out of the house and garden, even though he betook himself to the meadow, where Paul Blackthorn was lying on the grass with his feet kicking in the air, and shewing the skin through his torn shoes. The two lads squatted down on the grass with their heads together. Who could tell what mischief that runaway might be putting into Harold’s head, and all because Alfred could not bear with him enough for him to be happy at home?
They were so much engrossed, that it needed a rough call from the farmer to send Paul back to his work when the dinner-hour was over; whereupon Harold came slowly to his digging again.
Hotter and hotter did it grow, and the grey dull clouds began to gain a yellow lurid light in the distance; there were low growlings of thunder far away, and Ellen left her work unfinished, and forgot how hot she was herself in toiling to fan Alfred, so as to keep him in some little degree cooler, while the more he strove with the heat, the more oppressed and miserable he grew.
Poor fellow! his wretchedness was not so much the heat, as the dim perception of Mr. Blunt’s hasty words; he had not heard them fully—he dared not inquire what they had been, and he could not endure to face them—yet the echo of ‘nothing will ever do him good,’ seemed to ring like a knell in his ears every time he turned his weary head. Nothing do him good! Nothing! Always these four walls, that little bed, this wasting weary lassitude, this gnawing, throbbing pain, no pony, no running, no shouting, no sense of vigour and health ever again, and perhaps—that terrible perhaps, which made Alfred’s very flesh quail, he would not think of; and to drive it away, he found some fresh toil to require of the sister who could not content him, toil as she would.
Slowly the afternoon hours rolled on, one after the other, and Alfred had just been in a pet with the clock for striking four when he wanted it to be five, when the sky grew darker, and one or two heavy drops of rain came plashing down on the thirsty earth.
‘The storm is coming at last, and now it will be cooler,’ said Ellen, looking out from the window. ‘Dear me!’ she added, there stopping short.
‘What?’ asked Alfred. ‘What are you gaping at?’
‘I declare!’ cried Ellen, ‘it’s the new clergyman! It is Mr. Cope, and he is coming up to the wicket!’
Alfred turned his head with a peevish sound; he was in the dreary mood to resent whatever took off attention from him for a moment.
‘A very pleasant-looking gentleman,’ commented Ellen, ‘and so young! He does not look older than Charles Lawrence! I wonder whether he is coming in, or if it is only to post a letter. Oh! there he is, talking to Mother! There!’
A vivid flash of lightning came over the room at that moment and made them all pause till it was followed up by the deep rumble of the thunder, and then down rushed the rain, plashing and leaping up again, bringing out the delicious scent from the earth, and seeming in one moment to breathe refreshment and relief on the sick boy. His brow was already clearing, as he listened to his mother’s tones of welcome, as she was evidently asking the stranger to sit down and wait for the storm to be over, and the cheerful voice that replied to her. He did not scold Ellen for, as usual, making things neat; and whereas, five minutes sooner, he would have hated the notion of any one coming near him, he now only hoped that his mother would bring Mr. Cope up; and presently he heard the well-known creak of the stairs under a manly foot, and his mother’s voice saying something about ‘a great sufferer, Sir.’
Then came in sight his mother’s white cap, and behind her one of the most cheerful lively faces that Alfred had ever beheld. The new Curate looked very little more than a boy, with a nice round fresh rosy face, and curly brown hair, and a quick joyous eye, and regular white teeth when he smiled that merry good-humoured smile. Indeed, he was as young as a deacon could be, and he looked younger. He knocked his tall head against the top of the low doorway as he came into the room, and answered Mrs. King’s apologies with a pleasant laugh. Ellen knew her mother would like him the better for his height, for no one since the handsome coachman himself had had to bend his head to get into the room. Alfred liked the looks of him the first moment, and by way of salutation put up one of his weary, white, blue-veined hands to pull his damp forelock; but Mr. Cope, nodding in answer to Ellen’s curtsey, took hold of his hand at once, and softening the cheery voice that was so pleasant to hear, said, ‘Well, my boy, I hope we shall be good friends. And what’s your name?’
‘Alfred King, Sir,’ was the answer. It really was quite a pleasure not to begin with the old weary subject of being pitied for his illness.
‘King Alfred!’ said Mr. Cope. ‘I met King Harold yesterday. I’ve got into royal company, it seems!’
Alfred
