Kitabı oku: «Johnny Ludlow, Second Series», sayfa 39

And with the aid of Mother Druff—an ancient dame who went about in clogs—we got on till after breakfast in the morning, when a damsel came after the place. She wore a pink gauze bonnet, smart and tawdry, and had a pert manner.

“Can you cook?” asked Tod.

The substance of her answer was, that she could do everything under the sun, provided she were not “tanked” after. Her late missis was for ever a-tanking. Would there be any washing to do?—because washing didn’t agree with her: and how often could she go out, and what was the wages?

Tod looked at me in doubt, and I slightly shook my head. It struck me that she would not do at any price. “I think you won’t suit,” said he to her.

“Oh,” returned she, all impertinence. “I can go then where I shall suit: and so, good-morning, gentlemen. There’s no call for you to be so uppish. I didn’t come after your forks and spoons.”

“The impudent young huzzy!” cried Tod, as she slammed the gate after her. “But she might do better than nobody, Johnny.”

“I don’t like her, Tod. If it rested with me, I’d rather live upon bread-and-cheese than take her.”

“Bread-and-cheese!” he echoed. “It is not a question of only bread-and-cheese. We must get our beds made and the knives cleaned.”

It seemed rather a blue look-out. Tod said he would go up again to the Whistling Wind, and tell Mother Jones she must find us some one. Picking a rose as he went down the path, he met a cleanly-looking elderly woman who was entering. She wore a dark apron, and old-fashioned white cap, and said she had come after the place.

“What can you do?” began Tod. “Cook?”

“Cook and clean too, sir,” she answered. And I liked the woman the moment I saw her.

“Oh, I don’t know that there’s much cleaning to do, beyond the knives,” remarked Tod. “We want our dinners cooked, you know, and the beds made. That’s about all.”

The woman smiled at that, as if she thought he knew little about it. “I have been living at the grocer’s, up yonder, sir, and they can give me a good character, though I say it. I’m not afraid of doing all you can want done, and of giving satisfaction, if you’d please to try me.”

“You’ll do,” said Tod, after glancing at me. “Can you come in at once?”

“As soon as you like, sir. When would you please to go for my character?”

“Oh, bother that!” said he. “I’ve no doubt you are all right. Can you make pigeon pies?”

“That I can, sir.”

“You’ll do then. What is your name?”

“Elizabeth Ho–”

“Elizabeth?” he interrupted, not giving her time to finish. “Why, the one just gone was Elizabeth. A grenadier, six feet high.”

“I’ve been mostly called Betty, sir.”

“Then we’ll call you Betty too.”

She went away, saying that she’d come back with her aprons. Tod looked after her.

“You like her, don’t you, Johnny?”

“That I do. She’s a good sort; honest as can be. You did not ask her about wages.”

“Oh, time enough for that,” said he.

And Betty turned out to be good as gold. Her history was a curious one; she told it to me one evening in the kitchen; in her small way she had been somewhat of a martyr. But God had been with her always, she said; through more trouble than the world knew of.

We had a letter from Mrs. Todhetley, redirected on from Sanbury. The chief piece of news it contained was, that the Squire and old Jacobson had gone off to Great Yarmouth for a fortnight.

“That’s good,” said Tod. “Johnny lad, you may write home now.”

“And tell about Rose Lodge?”

“Tell all you like. I don’t mind madam. She’ll have leisure to digest it against the pater returns.”

I wrote a long letter, and told everything, going into the minute details that she liked to hear, about the servants, and all else. Rose Lodge was the most wonderful bargain, I said, and we were both as happy as the days were long.

The church was a little primitive edifice near the sands. We went to service on Sunday morning; and upon getting home afterwards, found the cloth not laid. Tod had ordered dinner to be on the table. He sent me to the kitchen to blow up Betty.

“It is quite ready and waiting to be served; but I can’t find a clean tablecloth,” said Betty.

“Why, I told you where the tablecloths were,” shouted Tod, who heard the answer. “In the cupboard at the top of the stairs.”

“But there are no tablecloths there, sir,” cried she. “Nor anything else either, except a towel or two.”

Tod went upstairs in a passion, bidding her follow him, and flung the cupboard door open. He thought she had looked in the wrong place.

But Betty was right. With the exception of two or three old towels and some stacks of newspapers, the cupboard was empty.

“By Jove!” cried Tod. “Johnny, that grenadier must have walked off with all the linen!”

Whether she had, or had not, none to speak of could be found now. Tod talked of sending the police after her, and wrote an account of her delinquencies to Captain Copperas, addressing the letter to the captain’s brokers in Liverpool.

“But,” I debated, not quite making matters out to my own satisfaction, “the grenadier wanted us to examine her boxes, you know.”

“All for a blind, Johnny.”

It was the morning following this day, Monday, that, upon looking from my window, something struck me as being the matter with the garden. What was it? Why, all the roses were gone! Down I rushed, half dressed, burst out at the back-door, and gazed about me.

It was a scene of desolation. The rose-trees had been stripped; every individual rose was clipped neatly off from every tree. Two or three trees were left untouched before the front window; all the rest were rifled.

“What the mischief is the matter, Johnny?” called out Tod, as I was hastily questioning Betty. “You are making enough noise for ten, lad.”

“We have had robbers here, Tod. Thieves. All the roses are stolen.”

He made a worse noise than I did. Down he came, full rush, and stamped about the garden like any one wild. Old Druff and his wife heard him, and came up to the palings. Betty, busy in her kitchen, had not noticed the disaster.

“I see Tasker’s people here betimes this morning,” observed Druff. “A lot of ’em came. ’Twas a pity, I thought, to slice off all them nice big blows.”

“Saw who?—saw what?” roared Tod, turning his anger upon Druff. “You mean to confess to me that you saw these rose-trees rifled, and did not stop it?”

“Nay, master,” said Druff, “how could I interfere with Tasker’s people? Their business ain’t mine.”

“Who are Tasker’s people?” foamed Tod. “Who is Tasker?”

“Tasker? Oh, Tasker’s that there man at the white cottage on t’other side the village. Got a big garden round it.”

“Is he a poacher? Is he a robber?”

“Bless ye, master, Tasker’s no robber.”

“And yet you saw him take my roses?”

“I see him for certain. I see him busy with the baskets as the men filled ’em.”

Dragging me after him, Tod went striding off to Tasker’s. We knew the man by sight; had once spoken to him about his garden. He was a kind of nurseryman. Tasker was standing near his greenhouse.

“Why did I come and steal your roses?” he quietly repeated, when he could understand Tod’s fierce demands. “I didn’t steal ’em, sir; I picked ’em.”

“And how dared you do it? Who gave you leave to do it?” foamed Tod, turning green and purple.

“I did it because they were mine.”

“Yours! Are you mad?”

“Yes, sir, mine. I bought ’em and paid for ’em.”

Tod did think him mad at the moment; I could see it in his face. “Of whom, pray, did you buy them?”

“Of Captain Copperas. I had ’em from the garden last year and the year afore: other folks lived in the place then. Three pounds I gave for ’em this time. The captain sold ’em to me a month ago, and I was to take my own time for gathering them.”

I don’t think Tod had ever felt so floored in all his life. He stood back against the pales and stared. A month ago we had not known Captain Copperas.

“I might have took all the lot: ’twas in the agreement; but I left you a few before the front winder,” said Tasker, in an injured tone. “And you come and attack me like this!”

“But what do you want with them? What are they taken for?”

“To make otter of roses,” answered Tasker. “I sell ’em to the distillers.”

“At any rate, though it be as you say, I would have taken them openly,” contended Tod. “Not come like a thief in the night.”

“But then I had to get ’em afore the sun was powerful,” calmly answered Tasker.

Tod was silent all the way home. I had not spoken a word, good or bad. Betty brought in the coffee.

“Pour it out,” said he to me. “But, Johnny,” he presently added, as he stirred his cup slowly round, “I can’t think how it was that Copperas forget to tell me he had sold the roses.”

“Do you suppose he did forget?”

“Why, of course he forgot. Would an honest man like Copperas conceal such a thing if he did not forget it? You will be insinuating next, Johnny Ludlow, that he is as bad as Tasker.”

I must say we were rather in the dumps that day. Tod went off fishing; I carried the basket and things. I did wish I had not said so much about the roses to Mrs. Todhetley. What I wrote was, that they were brighter and sweeter and better than those other roses by Bendemeer’s stream.

I thought of the affair all day long. I thought of it when I was going to bed at night. Putting out the candle, I leaned from my window and looked down on the desolate garden. The roses had made its beauty.

“Johnny! Johnny lad! Are you in bed?”

The cautious whisper came from Tod. Bringing my head inside the room, I saw him at the door in his slippers and braces.

“Come into my room,” he whispered. “Those fellows who disturbed us the other night are at the gate again.”

Tod’s light was out and his window open. We could see a man bending down outside the gate, fumbling with the lock. Presently the bell was pulled very gently, as if the ringer thought the house might be asleep and he did not want to awaken it. There was something quite ghostly to the imagination in being disturbed at night like this.

“Who’s there?” shouted Tod.

“I am,” answered a cautious voice. “I want to see Captain Copperas.”

“Come along, Johnny. This is getting complicated.”

We went out to the gate, and saw a man: he was not either of the two who had come before. Tod answered him as he had answered them, but did not open the gate.

“Are you a friend of the captain’s?” whispered the man.

“Yes, I am,” said Tod. “What then?”

“Well, see here,” resumed he, in a confidential tone. “If I don’t get to see him it will be the worse for him. I come as a friend; come to warn him.”

“But I tell you he is not in the house,” argued Tod. “He has let it to me. He has left Cray Bay. His address? No, I cannot give it you.”

“Very well,” said the man, evidently not believing a word, “I am come out of friendliness. If you know where he is, you just tell him that Jobson has been here, and warns him to look out for squalls. That’s all.”

“I say, Johnny, I shall begin to fancy we are living in some mysterious castle, if this kind of thing is to go on,” remarked Tod, when the man had gone. “It seems deuced queer, altogether.”

It seemed queerer still the next morning. For a gentleman walked in and demanded payment for the furniture. Captain Copperas had forgotten to settle for it, he said—if he had gone away. Failing the payment, he should be obliged to take away the chairs and tables. Tod flew into a rage, and ordered him out of the place. Upon which their tongues went in for a pitched battle, and gave out some unorthodox words. Cooling down by-and-by, an explanation was come to.

He was a member of some general furnishing firm, ten miles off. Captain Copperas had done them the honour to furnish his house from their stores, including the piano, paying a small portion on account. Naturally they wanted the rest. In spite of certain strange doubts that were arising touching Captain Copperas, Tod resolutely refused to give any clue to his address. Finally the applicant agreed to leave matters as they were for three or four days, and wrote a letter to be forwarded to Copperas.

But the news that arrived from Liverpool staggered us more than all. The brokers sent back Tod’s first letter to Copperas (telling him of the grenadier’s having marched off with the linen), and wrote to say that they didn’t know any Captain Copperas; that no gentleman of that name was in their employ, or in command of any of their ships.

As Tod remarked, it seemed deuced queer. People began to come in, too, for petty accounts that appeared to be owing—a tailor, a bootmaker, and others. Betty shed tears.

One evening, when we had come in from a long day’s fishing, and were sitting at dinner in rather a gloomy mood, wondering what was to be the end of it, we caught sight of a man’s coat-tails whisking up to the front-door.

“Sit still,” cried Tod to me, as the bell rang. “It’s another of those precious creditors. Betty! don’t you open the door. Let the fellow cool his heels a bit.”

But, instead of cooling his heels, the fellow stepped aside to our open window, and stood there, looking in at us. I leaped out of my chair, and nearly out of my skin. It was Mr. Brandon.

“And what do you two fine gentlemen think of yourselves?” began he, when we had let him in. “You don’t starve, at any rate, it seems.”

“You’ll take some, won’t you, Mr. Brandon?” said Tod politely, putting the breast of a duck upon a plate, while I drew a chair for him to the table.

Ignoring the offer, he sat down by the window, threw his yellow silk handkerchief across his head, as a shade against the sun and the air, and opened upon our delinquencies in his thinnest tones. In the Squire’s absence, Mrs. Todhetley had given him my letter to read, and begged him to come and see after us, for she feared Tod might be getting himself into some inextricable mess. Old Brandon’s sarcasms were keen. To make it worse, he had heard of the new complications, touching Copperas and the furniture, at the Whistling Wind.

“So!” said he, “you must take a house and its responsibilities upon your shoulders, and pay the money down, and make no inquiries!”

“We made lots of inquiries,” struck in Tod, wincing.

“Oh, did you? Then I was misinformed. You took care to ascertain whether the landlord of the house would accept you as tenant; whether the furniture was the man’s own to sell, and had no liabilities upon it; whether the rent and taxes had been paid up to that date?”

As Tod had done nothing of the kind, he could only slash away at the other duck, and bite his lips.

“You took to a closet of linen, and did not think it necessary to examine whether linen was there, or whether it was all dumb-show–”

“I’m sure the linen was there when we saw it,” interrupted Tod.

“You can’t be sure; you did not handle it, or count it. The Squire told you you would hasten to make ducks and drakes of your five hundred pounds. It must have been burning a hole in your pocket. As to you, Johnny Ludlow, I am utterly surprised: I did give you credit for possessing some sense.”

“I could not help it, sir. I’m sure I should never have mistrusted Captain Copperas.” But doubts had floated in my mind whether the linen had not gone away in those boxes of Miss Copperas, that I saw the grenadier packing.

Tod pulled a letter-case out of his breast-pocket, selected a paper, and handed it to Mr. Brandon. It was the cheque for one hundred pounds.

“I thought of you, sir, before I began upon the ducks and drakes. But you were not at home, and I could not give it you then. And I thank you very much indeed for what you did for me.”

Mr. Brandon read the cheque and nodded his head sagaciously.

“I’ll take it, Joseph Todhetley. If I don’t, the money will only go in folly.” By which I fancied he had not meant to have the money repaid to him.

“I think you are judging me rather hardly,” said Tod. “How was I to imagine that the man was not on the square? When the roses were here, the place was the prettiest place I ever saw. And it was dirt-cheap.”

“So was the furniture, to Copperas,” cynically observed Mr. Brandon.

“What is done is done,” growled Tod. “May I give you some raspberry pudding?”

“Some what? Raspberry pudding! Why, I should not digest it for a week. I want to know what you are going to do.”

“I don’t know, sir. Do you?”

“Yes. Get out of the place to-morrow. You can’t remain in it with bare walls: and it’s going to be stripped, I hear. Green simpletons, you must be! I dare say the landlord will let you off by paying him three months’ rent. I’ll see him myself. And you’ll both come home with me, like two young dogs with their tails burnt.”

“And lose all the money I’ve spent?” cried Tod.

“Ay, and think yourself well off that it is not more. You possess no redress; as to finding Copperas, you may as well set out to search for the philosopher’s stone. It is nobody’s fault but your own; and if it shall bring you caution, it may be an experience cheaply bought.”

“I could never have believed it of a sailor,” Tod remarked ruefully to old Druff, when we were preparing to leave.

“Ugh! fine sailor he was!” grunted Druff. “He warn’t a sailor. Not a reg’lar one. Might ha’ been about the coast a bit in a collier, perhaps—nothing more. As to that grenadier, I believe she was just another of ’em—a sister.”

But we heard a whiff of news later that told us Captain Copperas was not so bad as he seemed. After he had taken Rose Lodge and furnished it, some friend, for whom in his good-nature he had stood surety to a large amount, let him in for the whole, and ruined him. Honest men are driven into by-paths sometimes.

And so that was the inglorious finale to our charming retreat by Bendemeer’s stream.

XIX.
LEE, THE LETTER-MAN

In a side lane of Timberdale, just off the churchyard, was the cottage of Jael Batty, whose name you have heard before. Side by side with it stood another cottage, inhabited by Lee, the assistant letter-carrier; or, as Timberdale generally called him, the letter-man. These cottages had a lively look-out, the farrier’s shop and a few thatched hayricks opposite; sideways, the tombstones in the graveyard.

Some men are lucky in life, others are unlucky. Andrew Lee was in the latter category. He had begun life as a promising farmer, but came down in the world. First of all, he had to pay a heap of money for some man who had persuaded him to become his security, and that stripped him of his means. Afterwards a series of ill-fortunes set in on the farm: crops failed, cattle died, and Lee was sold up. Since then, he had tried at this and tried at that; been in turn a farmer’s labourer, an agent for coal, and the proprietor of a shop devoted to the benefit of the younger members of the community, its speciality being bull’s-eyes and besoms for birch-rods. For some few years now he had settled down in this cottage next door to Jael Batty’s, and carried out the letters at fourteen shillings a-week.

There were two letter-men, Spicer and Lee. But there need not have been two, only that Timberdale was so straggling a parish, the houses in it lying far and wide. Like other things in this world, fortune, even in so trifling a matter as these two postmen, was not dealt out equally. Spicer had the least work, for he took the home delivery, and had the most pay; Lee did all the country tramping, and had only the fourteen shillings. But when the place was offered to Lee he was at a very low ebb indeed, and took it thankfully, and thought he was set up in riches for life; for, as you well know, we estimate things by comparison.

Andrew Lee was not unlucky in his fortunes only. Of his three children, not one had prospered. The son married all too young; within a year he and his wife were both dead, leaving a baby-boy to Lee as a legacy. The elder daughter had emigrated to the other end of the world with her husband; and the younger daughter had a history. She was pretty and good and gentle, but just a goose. Goose that she was, though, all the parish liked Mamie Lee.

About four years before the time I am telling of, there came a soldier to Timberdale, on a visit to Spicer the letter-carrier, one James West. He was related to Spicer’s wife; her nephew, or cousin, or something of that sort; a tall, good-looking, merry-tempered dragoon, with a dashing carriage and a dashing tongue; and he ran away with the heart of Mamie Lee. That might not so much have mattered in the long-run, for such privilege is universally allowed to the sons of Mars; but he also ran away with her. One fine morning Mr. James West was missing from Timberdale, and Mamie Lee was missing also. The parish went into a rapture of indignation over it, not so much at him as at her; called her a “baggage,” and hoping her folly would come home to her. Poor old Lee thought he had received his death-blow, and his hair turned grey swiftly.

Not more than twelve months had gone by when Mamie was back again. Jael Batty was running out one evening to get half-a-pound of sugar at Salmon’s shop, when she met a young woman with a bundle staggering down the lane, and keeping under the side of the hedge as if she were afraid of falling, or else did not want to be seen. Too weak to carry the bundle, she seemed ready to sink at every step. Jael Batty, who had her curiosity like other people, though she was deaf, peered into the bent face, and brought herself up with a shriek.

“What, is it you, Mamie Lee! Well, the impedence of this! How on earth could you pick up the brass to come back here?”

“Are my poor father and mother alive? Do they still live here?” faltered Mamie, turning her piteous white face to Jael.

“They be both alive; but it’s no thanks to you. If they– Oh, if I don’t believe– What have you got in that ragged old shawl?”

“It’s my baby,” answered Mamie; and she passed on.

Andrew Lee took her in with sobs and tears, and thanked Heaven she had come back, and welcomed her unreasonably. The parish went on at him for it, showering down plenty of abuse, and asking whether he did not feel ashamed of himself. There was even a talk of his post as letter-carrier being taken from him; but it came to nothing. Rymer was postmaster then, though he was about giving it up; and he was a man of too much sorrow himself to inflict it needlessly upon another. On the contrary, he sent down cordials and tonics and things for Mamie, who had had a fever and come home dilapidated as to strength, and never charged for them. Thomas Rymer’s own heart was slowly breaking, so he could feel for her.

The best or the worst of it was, that Mamie said she was married. Which assertion was of course not believed, and only added to her sin in the eyes of Timberdale. The tale she told was this. That James West had taken her straight to some town, where he had previously had the banns put up, and married her there. The day after the marriage they had sailed for Ireland, whither he had to hasten to join his regiment, his leave of absence having expired. At the end of some seven or eight months, the regiment was ordered to India, and he departed with it, leaving her in her obscure lodging at Cork. By-and-by her baby was born; she was very ill then; very; had fever and a cough, and sundry other complications; and what with lying ill eight weeks, and being obliged to pay a doctor and a nurse all that time, besides other expenses, she spent all the money Mr. James West left with her, and had no choice between starvation and coming back to Timberdale.

You should have heard how this account was scoffed at. The illness, and the baby, and the poverty nobody disputed—they were plain enough to be seen by all Timberdale; and what better could she expect, they would like to know? But when she came to talk about the church (or rather, old Lee for her, second-hand, for she was not at all a person now to be spoken to by Timberdale), then their tongues were let loose in all kinds of inconvenient questions. Which was the town?—and which was the church in it?—and where were her “marriage lines”? Mamie could give no answer at all. She did not know the name of the town, or where it was situated. James had taken her with him in the train to it, and that was all she knew; and she did not know the name of the church or the clergyman; and as to marriage lines, she had never heard of any. So, as Timberdale said, what could you make out of this, except one thing—that Mr. Jim West had been a deep rogue, and taken her in. At best, it could have been but a factitious ceremony; perhaps in some barn, got up like a church for the occasion, said the more tolerant, willing to give excuse for pretty Mamie if they could; but the chief portion of Timberdale looked upon the whole as an out-and-out invention of her own.

Poor Andrew Lee had never taken a hopeful view of the affair from the first; but he held to the more tolerant opinion that Mamie had been herself deceived, and he could not help being cool to Spicer in consequence. Spicer in retaliation threw all the blame upon Mamie, and held up Mr. James West as a paragon of virtue.

But, as the time went on, and no news, no letter or other token arrived from West, Mamie herself gave in. That he had deceived her she slowly became convinced of, and despair took hold of her heart. Timberdale might have the satisfaction of knowing that she judged herself just as humbly and bitterly as they judged her, and was grieving herself to a shadow. Three years had passed now since her return, and the affair was an event of the past; and Mamie wore, metaphorically, the white sheet of penitence, and hardly dared to show her face outside the cottage-door.

But you may easily see how all this, besides the sorrow, told upon Lee. Fourteen shillings a week for a man and his wife to exist upon cannot be called much, especially if they have seen better days and been used to better living. When the first grandchild, poor little orphan, arrived to be kept, Lee and his wife both thought it hard, though quite willing to take him; and now they had Mamie and another grandchild. This young one was named Jemima, for Mamie had called her after her faithless husband. Five people and fourteen shillings a-week, and provisions dear, and house-rent to pay, and Lee’s shoes perpetually wanting to be mended! One or two generous individuals grew rather fond of telling Lee that he would be better off in the union.

It was November weather. A cold, dark, biting, sharp, drizzly morning. Andrew Lee got up betimes, as usual: he had to be out soon after seven to be ready for his letter delivery. In the kitchen when he entered it, he found his daughter there before him, coaxing the kettle to boil on the handful of fire, that she might make him his cup of tea and give him his breakfast. She was growing uncommonly weak and shadowy-looking now: a little woman, still not much more than a girl, with a shawl folded about her shivering shoulders, a hacking cough, and a mild, non-resisting face. Her father had lately told her that he would not have her get up in the morning; she was not fit for it: what he wanted done, he could do himself.

“Now, Mamie, why are you here? You should attend to what I say, child.”

She got up from her knees and turned her sad brown eyes towards him: bright and sweet eyes once, but now dimmed with the tears and sorrow of the last three years.

“I am better up; I am indeed, father. Not sleeping much, I get tired of lying: and my cough is worse in bed.”

He sat down to his cup of tea and to the bread she placed before him. Some mornings there was a little butter, or dripping, or mayhap bacon fat; but this morning he had to eat his bread dry. It was getting near the end of the week, and the purse ran low. Lee had a horror of debt, and would never let his people run into it for the smallest sum if he knew it.

“It’s poor fare for you this morning, father; but I’ll try and get a morsel of boiled pork for dinner, and we’ll have it ready early. I expect to be paid to-day for the bit of work I have been doing for young Mrs. Ashton. Some of those greens down by the apple-trees want cutting: they’ll be nice with a bit of pork.”

Lee turned his eyes in the direction of the greens and the apple-trees; but the window was misty, and he could only see the drizzle of rain-drops on the diamond panes. As he sat there, a thought came into his head that he was beginning to feel old: old, and worn, and shaky. Trouble ages a man more than work, more than time; and Lee never looked at the wan face of his daughter, and at its marks of sad repentance, but he felt anew the sting which was always pricking him more or less. What with that, and his difficulty to keep the pot boiling, and his general state of shakiness, Lee was older than his years. Timberdale had fallen into the habit of calling him Old Lee, you see; but he was not sixty yet. He had a nice face; when it was a young face it must have been like Mamie’s. It had furrows in it now, and his scanty grey locks hung down on each side of it.

Putting on his top-coat, which was about as thin as those remarkable sheets told of by Brian O’Linn, Lee went out buttoning it. The rain had ceased, but the cold wind took him as he went down the narrow garden-path, and he could not help shivering.

“It’s a bitter wind to-day, father; in the north-east, I think,” said Mamie, standing at the door to close it after him. “I hope there’ll be no letters for Crabb.”

Lee, as he pressed along in the teeth of the cruel east wind, was hoping the same. Salmon the grocer, who had taken the post-office, as may be remembered, when the late Thomas Rymer gave it up, was sorting the letters in the room behind the shop when Lee went in. Spicer, a lithe, active, dark-eyed man of forty-five, stood at the end of the table waiting for his bag. Lee went and stood beside him, giving him a brief good-morning: he had not taken kindly to the man since West ran away with Mamie.

“A light load this morning,” remarked Mr. Salmon to Spicer, as he handed him his appropriate bag. “And here’s yours, Lee,” he added a minute after: “not heavy either. Too cold for people to write, I suppose.”

“Anything for Crabb, sir?”

“For Crabb? Well, yes, I think there is. For the Rector.”

Upon going out, Spicer turned one way, Lee the other. Spicer’s district was easy as play; Lee’s was a regular country tramp, the farm-houses lying in all the four points of the compass. The longest tramp was over to us at Crabb. And why the two houses, our own and Coney’s farm, should continue to be comprised in the Timberdale delivery, instead of that of Crabb, people could never understand. It was so still, however, and nobody bestirred himself to alter it. For one thing, we were not often at Crabb Cot, and the Coneys did not have many letters, so it was not like an every-day delivery: we chanced to be there just now.