“Changed in the post?”
“Changed somewhere.”
“But who did it?”
“That’s the question.”
The Squire could not tear himself away. Once out of the bank he would be nonplussed. He began casting a doubt on the Worcester post-office; the clerk retorted that there was a post-office at our end, Timberdale: and at that the Squire fired up. Each would have held out for the good faith of his respective post-office to the death. It put Tod and me in mind of the fable of the crows, each old mother saying that her own crow was the whitest. After glaring at one another for a bit through their spectacles, they shook hands and parted.
We arrived home to a late dinner at Crabb Cot, just as wise as we had left it in the morning. The Squire had an awful cold, though he wouldn’t admit it. At nine o’clock he virtually gave in, went up to bed, and said Molly was to make him a basin of hot gruel, and we might put a drop of brandy in it.
The mode of conveying the letters from Worcester was this. The Timberdale bag, made up at the Worcester office, was brought out at night by the late train, and dropped at the Timberdale Station. The postmaster of Timberdale would be at the station to receive it, and carry it home.
His name was Rymer. A man of acknowledged respectability in the place, and of good connections, the son of a clergyman. He had been brought up for a surgeon, but somehow never had the chance to pass; and, years and years ago, opened a chemist and druggist’s shop at Timberdale. Then he added other things: stationery, Christmas cards, valentines, boys’ marbles, purses, and such like, which his wife attended to. In time he had the post-office. As to suspecting Rymer of doing anything wrong with the note, it was not to be thought of. He had two children: a son, who never seemed to do any good for himself, and if placed away from home would return to it again: and a daughter, a nice little girl of sixteen, who was as useful amidst the drugs and the post-office work as her father.
Timberdale had two letter-carriers. One for the place itself, the other for the country round. This last had a regular journey of it, for the farm-houses were scattered. There had always been talk that our two houses—the Squire’s and old Coney’s—ought not to be put in the Timberdale district of delivery, and why it was originally done nobody could make out; seeing that we were ever so far off Timberdale, and in Crabb parish. But people did not bestir themselves to alter it, and so the old custom went on. The country postman was Lee: a trustworthy old soul with shaky legs.