“Don’t be nervous,” Bundock reassured her. “I’ll find it.”
“Oh, no hurry, no hurry!” said Caleb, beginning to perspire distressingly under the postman’s exertions and to mop his hairy brow with his brook-sopped handkerchief. How these youngsters grew up! he was thinking. Brats one had seen spanked waxed into mighty officers of State. “Shall I brush your breeches, Posty?” he inquired tactlessly.
“What’s the use till they’re dry?” snapped Bundock.
“Come in and dry them before the kitchen fire,” said Martha.
“This sun’ll dry them,” he said coldly.
“Not so slick as the fire,” Caleb blundered on. “ ’Tain’t like you was a serpent walking on your belly.”
Bundock flushed angrily and right-wheeled to hide the seat of his trousers. “Why you should go and catch your letter when the roads are in that state——!” he muttered.
“You could ha’ waited till they dried!” Caleb said deprecatingly.
“I did wait a post-day or so,” said Bundock with undiminished resentment. “But there’s such a thing, uncle, as duty to my Queen. Things might have got damper instead of drier, like the time the floods were out beyond Long Bradmarsh, and I might have had to swim out to you.”
Caleb was impressed. “But can you swim?” he inquired.