At these words, a ragged boy, with red hair and a squint, ran towards me to lead the way.
"Did you know the poor man?" I asked him, on the road.
"How should I not know him? He taught me to make whistles. When (may he be in heaven!) we met him coming from the tavern, we used to run after him calling, 'Daddy! daddy! some nuts,' and he gave us nuts. He idled most of his time away with, us."
"And do the travellers ever speak of him?"
"There are few travellers now-a-days, unless the assize judge turns up; and he is too busy to think of the dead. But a lady, passing through last summer, did ask after the old Postmaster, and she went to his grave."
"What was the ladylike?" I inquired curiously.
"A beautiful lady," answered the boy. "She travelled in a coach with six horses, three beautiful little children, a nurse, and a little black dog; and when she heard that the old Postmaster was dead, she wept, and told the children to keep quiet while she went to the cemetery. I offered to show her the way, but the lady said, 'I know the way,' and she gave me a silver piatak (twopence) ... such a kind lady!"
We reached the cemetery. It was a bare place unenclosed, marked with wooden crosses and unshaded by a single tree. Never before had I seen such a melancholy cemetery.
"Here is the grave of the old Postmaster," said the boy to me, as he pointed to a heap of sand into which had been stuck a black cross with a brass icon (image).
"Did the lady come here?" I asked.