ink I can't see sense
except through your spectacles? I give you leave to cut out my tongue,
and nail it up on th' barn-door for a caution to magpies, if I let out
on that poor wench, either to herself, or any one that is hers, as the
Bible says. Now you've heard me speak Scripture language, perhaps
you'll be content, and leave me my kitchen to myself.'

During all these days, from the 5th of July to the 17th, I must have
forgotten what Holdsworth had said about cards. And yet I think I could
not have quite forgotten; but, once having told Phillis about his
marriage, I must have looked upon the after consequence of cards as of
no importance. At any rate they came upon me as a surprise at last. The
penny-post reform, as people call it, had come into operation a short
time before; but the never-ending stream of notes and letters which
seem now to flow in upon most households had not yet begun its course;
at least in those remote parts. There was a post-office at Hornby; and
an old fellow, who stowed away the few letters in any or all his
pockets, as it best suited him, was the letter-carrier to Heathbridge
and the neighbourhood. I have often met him in the lanes thereabouts,
and asked him for letters. Sometimes I have come upon him, sitting on
the hedge-bank resting; and he has begged me to read him an address,
too illegible for his spectacled eyes to decipher. When I used to
inquire if he had anything for me, or for Holdsworth (he was not
particular to whom he gave up the letters, so that he got rid of them
somehow, and could set off homewards), he would say he thought that he
had, for such was his invariable safe form of answer; and would fumble
in breast-pockets, waistcoat-pockets, breeches-pockets, and, as a last
resource, in coat-tail pockets; and at length try to comfort me, if I
looked disappointed, by telling me, 'Hoo had missed this toime, but was
sure to write to-morrow;' 'Hoo' representing an imaginary sweetheart.

Sometimes I had seen the minister bring home a letter which he had
found lying for him at the little shop that was the post-office at
Heathbridge, or from the grander establishment at Hornby. Once or twice
Josiah, the carter, remembered that the old letter-carrier had trusted
him with an epistle to 'Measter', as they had met in the lanes. I think
it must have been about ten days after my arrival at the farm, and my
talk to Phillis cutting bread-and-butter at the kitchen dresser, before
the day on wh