"It is hot," I said, stopping under a tree to take off my hat, and to wipe the perspiration from my forehead; "there is not a breath of air!"
"I'll tell you what," said Jack, suddenly, "Mike will be up directly. He'll take your letter for you; he's going to Calvington."
"Who is Mike?" I said.
"Don't you know Mike?" he said. "He's McTaggart's youngest lad; his father has Canrobin Farm, away up on the hills. He's driving into Calvington with some parcels for his father, which have to go off by the one o'clock train. I saw him a few minutes since, calling for something at Kilgreggan House, a bit down this road by the sea. Oh, here he is!"
At this moment a light cart drove up, and in it was young McTaggart, in the midst of sacks and bundles and parcels. Jack told him my errand, and he said at once he would take the letter.
"Oh! But, Jack," I said, "maybe I ought not to give it to him. My mistress told me to go myself, and to give it to the doctor."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Jack, laughing heartily. "As if it mattered who took the letter, so long as the doctor gets it? and Mike will be there long before you would; so it's a good job, whichever way you look at it."
"Perhaps I had better go with Mike," I said, "if he'll be so good as to give me a lift."
"But Mike isn't coming back again," said Jack; "he's going to stay in Calvington all day at his aunt's; aren't you, Mike? And so you'd just have to toil these weary miles back again in the heat and dust. Don't be a fool now, Peter!"
I did not like being called a fool, and so, although my conscience told me I was doing wrong, I handed my letter to Mike, and he drove away.