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Mother, she ran to the head of the stairs, 'the new clergyman's name is the Reverend Mr. Marcus Cope. 'He don't live at Ragglesford, I hope! cried Harold, who regarded any one at the end of that long lane as his natural enemy. 'No, it only says Friarswood, said Ellen. 'You'll have to find out where he lives, Harold. 'Pish! it will take me an hour going asking about! said Harold impatiently.
The summer night was so still, they could be heard a great way those rude coarse voices of village boys boasting and jeering one another. 'I say, wouldn't you like to be one of they chaps at Ragglesford School? 'What lots they bought there on Saturday, to be sure! 'Well they may: they've lots of tin! 'Have they? How d'ye know? 'Why, the money-letters!
There was a fine white frost, and the rime hung thickly on every spray of the heavy branches of the dark firs and larches that overhung the long solitary lane between the Grange and Ragglesford, and fringed the park palings with crystals. Harold thought how cold poor Paul must be going on his way in his ragged clothes.
Alfred had had time to cry himself exhausted, and to be lying very still, almost faint, before Mr. Cope came in in the summer twilight. Good Paul! He had found that Mr. Cope was dining at Ragglesford and had run all the way thither; and here was the kind young Curate, quite breathless with his haste, and never regretting the cheerful party whence he had been called away.
The Rector had fallen into such bad health, that he had long been unable to do anything, and always hoping to get better, he had sent different gentlemen to take the services, first one and then another, or had asked the masters at Ragglesford to help him; but it was all very irregular, and no one had settled down long enough to know the people or do much good in visiting them.
There was none from her, but then there was none for Ragglesford, and that was unexpected good luck. If the old housekeeper left in charge had been wicked enough to get her newspaper that day, Alfred felt that in Harold's place he should be sorely tempted to chuck it over the hedge.
How often he licked his fingers during the process need not be mentioned; but his objection to Ragglesford was quite gone off, now that some one was nearly certain to be looking out for him, with a good-natured greeting, or an inquiry for Paul.
People must have their letters whether Paul Blackthorn were lost or not, and Harold was a servant of the public, and must do his duty, so after some exhortations from his mother, he ruefully rose up, hoping that he should not have to go to Ragglesford. 'Yes, you will, said his mother, 'and maybe to wait. Here's a registered letter, and I think there are two more with money in them.
Sloping down from the farm-yard, the ground led to the river, a smooth clear stream, where the white ducks looked very pretty, swimming, diving, and 'standing tail upwards; and there was a high-arched bridge over it, where Alfred could get a good view of the carriages that chanced to come by, and had lately seen all the young gentlemen of Ragglesford going home for the summer holidays, making such a whooping and hurrahing, that the place rang again; and beyond, there were beautiful green meadows, with a straight path through them, leading to a stile; and beyond that, woods rose up, and there was a little glimpse of a stately white house peeping through them.
He used to ride in looking blue and purple with the chill; and though he went as close to the fire as possible, and steamed like the tea-kettle while he ate his breakfast and his mother sorted the letters, he had not time to warm himself thoroughly before he had to ride off to leave them two miles further altogether; for besides the bag for the Grange, and all the letters for the Rectory, and for the farmers, there was a young gentlemen's school at a great old lonely house, called Ragglesford, at the end of a very long dreary lane; and many a day Alfred would have given something if those boys' relations would only have been so good as, with one consent, to leave them without letters.
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