threepenny-bits, she went all through her day's expenses aloud, calling all her girls to witness to help her to account for the sixpence that ought to have been there.
Mrs. Brown had paid her four and sixpence-one florin and a half- crown-and she had three threepenny-pieces in her pocket, and twopence. Then Sally had been out and got a shilling's-worth of soap, and six-penn'orth of blue, and brought home one shilling; and there was the sausages-no one could recollect what they had cost, though they talked so much about their taste; and five-pence-worth of red-herrings, and the butter; yes, and threepence to the beggar who said he had been in Sebastopol. Harold's head was ready to turn round before it was all done; but he got away at last, with a scolding for not going up to see Mother.
Home he trotted as hard as the pony would go, holding his head down to try to bury nose and mouth in his collar, and the thick rain plastering his hair, and streaming down the back of his neck. What an ill-used wretch was he, said he to himself, to have to rattle all over the country in such weather!
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.
