way wi' then. A pretty concern
that'll be! Nobody's head to put on your letters; and then your honest
man who do pay his penny will never be known from your scamp who don't.
O, 'tis a nation!'

'Warm the cockles of your heart, however. Here's the bottle waiting.'

'I'll oblige you, my friend.'

The drinking was repeated. The postman grew livelier as he went on, and
at length favoured the steward with a song, Manston himself joining in
the chorus.

'He flung his mallet against the wall,
Said, "The Lord make churches and chapels to fall,
And there'll be work for tradesmen all!"
When Joan's ale was new,
My boys,
When Joan's ale was new.'

'You understand, friend,' the postman added, 'I was originally a mason
by trade: no offence to you if you be a parson?'

'None at all,' said Manston.

The rain now came down heavily, but they pursued their path with
alacrity, the produce of the several fields between which the lane wound
its way being indicated by the peculiar character of the sound emitted
by the falling drops. Sometimes a soaking hiss proclaimed that they were
passing by a pasture, then a patter would show that the rain fell upon
some large-leafed root crop, then a paddling plash announced the naked
arable, the low sound of the wind in their ears rising and falling with
each pace they took.

Besides the small private bags of the county families, which were all
locked, the postman bore the large general budget for the remaining
inhabitants along his beat. At each village or hamlet they came to, the
postman searched for the packet of letters destined for that place, and
thrust it into an ordinary letter-hole cut in the door of the receiver's
cottage--the village post-offices being mostly kept by old women who had
not yet risen, though lights moving in other cottage windows showed that
such people as carters, woodmen, and stablemen had long been stirring.

The postman had by this time become markedly unsteady, but he still
continued to be too conscious of his duties to suffer the steward to
search the bag. Manston was perplexed, and at lonely points in the road
cast his eyes keenly upon the short bowed figure of the man trotting
through the mud by his side, as if he were half inclined to run a very
great risk indeed.

It frequently happened that the houses of farmers, clergymen, etc., lay
a short distance up or do