"'Tis too far in a gale for my old legs," said Ride, "an'——"
"But 'tis Her Majesty's mail!" cried Arch. "Won't you try, b'y?"
"An I had a chance t' make it, I'd try, quick enough," said Ride sharply; "but 'twould be not only me life, but the mail I'd lose. The ice do be broken up 'tween here an' Creepy Bluff; an' not even Arch Butt, hisself, could walk the hills."
"Three days lost!" Arch groaned. "All the letters three days late! An' all——"
"Letters!" Ride broke in scornfully. "Letters, is it? Don't you fret about they. A love letter for the parson's daughter; the price o' fish from St. John's for the old skipper; an' a merchant's account for every fisherman t' the harbour: they be small things t' risk life for."
The mailman laid his hand on the leather bag at his side. He fingered the government seal tenderly and his eyes flashed splendidly when he looked up.
"'Tis Her Majesty's mail!" he said. "Her Majesty's mail! Who knows what they be in this bag. Maybe, b'y—maybe—maybe they's a letter for old Aunt Esther Bludgel. She've waited this three year for a letter from that boy," he continued. "Maybe 'tis in there now. Sure, b'y, an' I believe 'tis in there. Saul Ride, the mail must go!"
A touch of the bruised foot on the floor brought the mailman groaning to his chair again. If the mail were to go to Ruddy Cove that night, it was not to be carried on his back: that much was evident. Saul Ride gazed at him steadily for a moment. Something of the younger man's fine regard for duty communicated itself to him. There had been a time—the days of his strength—when he, too, would have thought of duty before danger. He went abstractly to the foot of the loft stair.
"Billy!" he called. "Billy!"