It was the question and also the tragedy of their lives, the question Duncan Polite's whole life was given up towards answering.
"We must jist be trusting that to the Lord, Andra," he said with his usual hopefulness. "Whatever changes come, He is the same yesterday, to-day and forever."
But Duncan Polite realised the affair was not ended. He knew it was not likely that the young people would defy Splinterin' Andra and drive him to violence, but the fire of gossip would be set going and he feared his friend's life would be embittered. He was thinking deeply and sadly over the problem the next morning as he dug up the potatoes from his garden. There was Coonie, now, if he set his sharp tongue going against the elder there would be no end to the trouble. He glanced up and saw the subject of his thoughts coming slowly down the road in his old buckboard.
Why the Glenoro mail-carrier was called Coonie instead of Henry Greene, which was his real name, was, like all that gentleman's personal affairs, shrouded in mystery. Some doubted that Coonie himself knew, though if he did it was not at all likely he would divulge the secret, for he guarded very carefully his own private business. Whatever concerned himself held a monopoly of his reticence, however, for in matters of current gossip he was second to none in the whole township of Oro. He beat even Miss Cotton and Mrs. Fraser, for, whereas they might arrive at a stage when they had nothing more to tell, not so Coonie. If he found himself without some startling news he manufactured it to suit the occasion.
His vehicle was an old buckboard with a wide seat, and a rickety old chariot it was. His custom was to sit slouching at one end of the seat, one foot upon the dashboard, the other dangling down in the dust, thus making the other end of the seat stick away up in the air, as though to suggest to any chance pedestrian that he was almost crowded out already and could accommodate no one.
His horse was a poor, decrepit, old creature, whom he had named Bella, after the eldest of the pretty Hamilton girls, much to that young lady's disgust. In spite of old Bella's skeleton appearance and hobbling gait, Coonie took great pride in her and offered many times to trot her against Sandy Neil's racer. Her extreme lameness seemed quite appropriate, however, for in this respect she was the fitting complement to her master. For poor Coonie was a cripple, scarcely able to bear his long body on his weak ankles, and when the villagers saw him stumble painfully out of his vehicle at the post-office and drag himself to the veranda, even the person outraged by his latest flight of fancy forgave and pitied him. Everyone felt that the nimbleness of his tongue was perhaps only some slight compensation for the uselessness of his feet.
His daily drive through Glenoro was something of an event to all the inhabitants, for he was willing to stop everywhere and anywhere and tell the latest news. Old Andrew considered him a most pernicious individual and a breeder of evil in the Glen, and for that reason as well as on general principles, Coonie took a particular delight in libelling the ruling elder. He pulled up as he reached Duncan's gate. He never passed without a few words with the old man. Not because he ever heard or told any gossip at Duncan Polite's, but Coonie could never forget a certain dark night when the mail bag was lost and the drunken mail-carrier in danger of finding himself behind prison bars, a night when Duncan Polite had toiled over the hills through mud and rain, and had rescued him. Not a person in the whole countryside, except the two, knew of the affair, but Coonie remembered, and in his queer way tried to repay the man who had saved him.
"Mornin'!" he called, somewhat crustily, as was his wont in opening a conversation. "How's things this mornin'?"
Duncan had hurried into the house and now emerged with a dipperful of creamy buttermilk. Coonie drank it off in one long pull.
"Ginger, that's prime!" he cried, drawing a long breath. "Goes right to the dry spot. How's your potatoes?"