Mr. Egerton stepped towards the buckboard, and Coonie grinned as he saw the brilliant polish of his boots disappear in the grey dust of the road.
"Hope you're likin' Glenoro," he said as he handed out the parcel.
John Egerton met the unaccustomed friendliness of the mail-carrier with the utmost cordiality. "Oh, yes, very well indeed, thank you!" he answered, but without the enthusiasm he would have displayed a couple months previous.
"Awful place for talk," replied Coonie righteously. "Never saw the likes. If a fellow's ever done anythin' in his life he shouldn't a' done, cried too much when he was a baby, or anythin' like that, they'll find it out. S'pose you'll find they're rakin' up all the things you ever did?"
John Egerton looked at the questioner keenly. He was not sufficiently acquainted with this queer specimen to be able to answer him according to his folly; so he said curtly, "I am perfectly willing they should, Mr. Greene; I never did anything I am ashamed of."
Coonie's face expressed profound astonishment, not unmixed with gentle reproof. "Is that so? Glad to hear it, sir, glad to hear it." He shook his head doubtfully as he spoke, and rode away, his shoulders drooping suspiciously. He was in such good humour that seeing some of the Hamilton girls on the veranda, he drew in all the breath he was capable of and bawled, "Say, which o' yous girls is goin' to marry the minister? I hear you're all after him!"
There was a chorus of smothered shrieks and a sudden vanishing of whisking skirts within the doorway, and having satisfied himself that Mr. Egerton must have heard, Coonie swung his whip round old Bella and clattered up to the post-office in high glee. And Duncan Polite from his watchtower on the hilltop witnessed his meeting with the minister and prayed that the young servant of his Master might be speaking to Coonie of things eternal.
John Egerton returned to his study in deep annoyance. He now realised certainly that someone was circulating slanderous tales about him, tales that had caused Jessie Hamilton to avoid him. His thoughts instantly reverted to Donald. He had noticed him and Jessie strolling along the river bank nearly every evening lately; probably he was filling the girl's mind with disagreeable untruths regarding her pastor. He believed young Neil capable of it. The knowledge of his perfect innocence in the past only served to increase his anger at anyone who had dared to malign him. He waited until four o'clock and then went up to the schoolmaster's house and demanded an explanation.
Mr. Watson confessed all he knew, making the story as much like the original as possible. It was not Donald but 'Liza Cotton that had told it, he explained. At first the victim of the tale could have laughed at the absurdity of it all, it seemed so trivial. But that did not explain why Jessie Hamilton had so suddenly preferred Donald to him.
"Are you sure that's all, Watson?" he demanded, "absolutely all?"