Page:Framley Parsonage.djvu/57

Rh as he handed in that and the vicar's newspaper. The vicar was a man of the world, and took the Jupiter.

"Come in, Robin postman, and warm theeself a while," said Jemima the cook, pushing a stool a little to one side, but still well in front of the big kitchen fire.

"Well, I dudna jist know how it'll be. The wery 'edges 'as eyes, and tells on me in Silverbridge if I so much as stops to pick a blackberry."

"There bain't no hedges here, mon, nor yet no blackberries, so sit thee down and warm theeself. That's better nor blackberries, I'm thinking," and she handed him a bowl of tea, with a slice of buttered toast.

Robin postman took the proffered tea, put his dripping hat on the ground, and thanked Jemima cook. "But I dudna jist know how it'll be," said he; "only it do pour so tarnation heavy." Which among us, O my readers, could have withstood that temptation?

Such was the circuitous course of Mark's letter; but as it left Chaldicotes on Saturday evening, and reached Mrs. Robarts on the following morning, or would have done but for that intervening Sunday, doing all its peregrinations during the night, it may be held that its course of transport was not inconveniently arranged. We, however, will travel by a much shorter route.

Robin, in the course of his daily travels, passed first the post-office at Framley, then the Framley Court back entrance, and then the vicar's house, so that on this wet morning Jemima cook was not able to make use of his services in transporting this letter back to her mistress, for Robin had got another village before him expectant of its letters.

"Why didn't thee leave it, mon, with Mr. Applejohn at the Court?" Mr. Applejohn was the butler who took the letter-bag. "Thee know'st as how missus was there."

And then Robin, mindful of the tea and toast, explained to her courteously how the law made it imperative on him to bring the letter to the very house that was indicated, let the owner of the letter be where she might; and he laid down the law very satisfactorily, with sundry long-worded quotations. Not to much effect, however, for the housemaid called him an oaf; and Robin would decidedly have had the worst of it had not the gardener come in and taken his part. "They women knows nothin', and