“As regairds the bookie,” and Posty held its cheap covers between his thumb and forefinger, “ye'ill excuse me. Jamie Soutar gied me a lend o' his French Revolution, an' a'm juist warstlin' thro' wi't. A hev 'na muckle time for readin', an' Tammas Carlyle's a stiff body, but his buiks are graund feedin'. Besides”—and now Posty gave the coup de grace—“thae re-leegious bookies hae nae logic for an able-bodied man, an' the laist ane ye gied me was louse in doctrine, juist stinkin' wi' Armeenianism.”
Posty was understood to hold an impregnable position with the head of his department, and it was boasted in the Glen that he had carried the mails from Drumtochty to Pitscourie—thirteen miles—and back, every day, excluding Sabbaths, for eight-and-twenty years. It was also believed that he had only been late twice, when the Scourie burn carried away the bridge, and Posty had to go four miles up stream to find a crossing-place, and the day when he struck his head against a stone, negotiating a drift, and lay insensible for three hours.
At five o'clock to a minute Posty appeared every morning in the village shop, which had accumulated during the night a blended fragrance of tea and sugar, and candles and Mac-dougall's sheep dip, and where Mrs. Robb, our postmistress, received Posty in a negligent undress sanctioned by official business and a spotless widowhood.
“That's frae the shooting lodge tae his Lordship. It 'ill be aboot the white hares;” and Mrs. Robb began to review the letters with unfailing accuracy. “Ye can aye ken Drumsheugh's hand; he's after some siller frae Piggie Walker. Piggie trickit him aince; he 'ill no dae't again. 'Miss Howieson.' Ma word! Jean's no blate tae pit that afore her lassie's name, and her a servant-lass, tho' a 'm no sayin' 'at she disna deserve it, sendin' her mother a post-office order the beginnin' o' ilka month, riglar. 'The Worshipful Chief Bummer of the Sons of Temperance Reform.' Michty, what a title! That's what they ca' that haverin' body frae the sooth Archie Moncur hed up lecturin' laist winter on teetotalism. Ye were terribly affeckit yersel, Posty, a' heard”—to which sally the immovable face gave no sign.
“And here's ane tae auld Maister Yellowlees, o' Kildrummie, askin' him tae the fast a'm jalousin'. Sall, the Free Kirk fouk 'ill no bless their minister for his choice. Div ye mind the diveesions o' his laist sermon here on the sparrows, Posty?”
“'We shall consider at length'”—the voice seemed to proceed from a graven image—“'the natural history of the sparrow; next we shall compare the value of sparrow in ancient and modern times; and lastly, we shall apply the foregoing truth to the spiritual condition of two classes.'”
“That 's it tae a word. It was michty, an' Donald Menzies threipit that he heard the deil lauchin' in the kirk. Weel, that's a', Posty, an' an Advertiser frae Burnbrae tae his son in the Black Watch. He 'ill be hame sune juist covered wi' medals. A' doot there 's been mair snow thro' the nicht. It 'ill be heavy traivellin'.”
The light of the oil-lamp fell on Posty as he buckled his bag, and threw his figure into relief against a background of boxes and barrels.
A tall man even for Drumtochty, standing six feet three in his boots, who, being only a walking skeleton, ought to have weighed some twelve stone, but with the bone and breadth of him turned the scale at fifteen. His hair was a fiery red, and his bare, hard-featured face two shades darker. No one had ever caught a trace of the inner man on Posty's face, save once and for an instant—when he jumped into Kelpie's hole to save a wee lassie. Elspeth Macfadyen said afterwards “his eyes were graund.” He wore the regulation cap on the back of his head, and as no post-office jacket was big enough to meet on Posty's chest, he looped it with string over a knitted waistcoat. One winter he amazed the Glen by appearing in a waterproof cape, which a humanitarian official had provided for country postmen, but returned after a week to his former estate, declaring that such luxuries were unhealthy and certain to undermine the constitution. His watch was the size of a small turnip, and gave the authorised time to the district, although Posty was always denouncing it for a tendency to lose a minute in the course of summer, an irregularity he used to trace back to a thunderstorm in his grandfather's time. His equipment was completed by an oaken stick, which the smith shod afresh every third year, and which Posty would suddenly swing over his head as he went along. It was supposed that at these times he had settled a point of doctrine.
Mrs. Robb started him with a score of letters, and the rest he gathered as he went. The upper Glen had a box with a lock, at the cross roads, and the theory was that each farm had one key and Posty his own. Every key except Posty's had been lost long ago, and the box stood open to the light, but Posty always made a vain attempt to sneck the door, and solemnly dropped the letters through the slit. Some farms had hidie holes in the dyke, which Posty could find in the darkest morning; and Hillocks, through sheer force of custom, deposited his correspondence, as his father had done before him, at the root of an ancient beech. Persons handing Posty letters considered it polite to hint at their contents, and any information about our exiles was considered Posty 's due. He was hardly ever known to make any remark, and a stranger would have said that he did not hear, but it was noticed that he carried the letters to Whinnie Knowe himself during George's illness, and there is no doubt that he was quite excited the day he brought the tidings of Professor Ross's recovery.