“Bide a bit then,” said Caleb, “and Oi’ll thrash through the hedge and work through agen in your rear.”
It was a chivalrous offer, for a deep ditch barred the way to the freshly ploughed land, and a tough and prickly chaos to the pasture land; but Bundock declined churlishly, if not unheroically, declaring there was a letter for Frog Cottage too. And when Caleb, recovering from this vindication of his wife’s prophesyings, offered to transmit it to the shepherd, “What guarantee have I,” asked Bundock, “that it reaches him safely, legally, and constitutionally? Nay, nay, uncle, a man must do his own jobs.”
“Then work through the bushes yourself. Don’t, ye’ll be fit to grow crops on.”
“Lord, how I hate going round—circumbendibus!” groaned Bundock. “I might as well be driving a post-cart.”
“There’s a mort of worser things than gooin’ round,” said Caleb. “And Oi do be marvelling a young chap like you should mind a bit of extra leg-work, bein’ as how ye’ve got naught else to do but to put one leg afore the ’tother.”
“Indeed?” snapped Bundock, this ignorant summary of his duties aggravating the moist clayey consciousness that resided at the seat of Her Majesty’s trousers.
“Ef ye won’t keep to the high roads, you ought to git a hoss what can clear everything,” Caleb went on to advise.
“And break my neck?”
“Posty always had a hoss when I was a cad.”
“Or lay in the road with a broken back and Her Majesty’s mail at the mercy of every tramp?” pursued Bundock. “No, no, one cripple in a family is enough.”