‘Then he is the very man to take charge of a letter; he knows the trouble of writing one.’
‘Aye, marry does he, an tou comest to that, mon; only it takes him four hours to write as mony lines. Tan, it is a great round hand loike, that one can read easily, and not loike your honour’s, that are like midge’s taes. But for ganging to Carloisle, he’s dead foundered, man, as cripple as Eckie’s mear.’
‘In the name of God,’ said I, ‘how is it that you propose to get my letter to the post?’
‘Why, just to put it into Squire’s bag loike,’ reiterated Dorcas; ‘he sends it by Cristal Nixon to post, as you call it, when such is his pleasure.’
Here I was, then, not much edified by having obtained a list of Dorcas’s bachelors; and by finding myself, with respect to any information which I desired, just exactly at the point where I set out. It was of consequence to me, however, to accustom, the girl to converse with me familiarly. If she did so, she could not always be on her guard, and something, I thought, might drop from her which I could turn to advantage.
‘Does not the Squire usually look into his letter-bag, Dorcas?’ said I, with as much indifference as I could assume.
‘That a does,’ said Dorcas; ‘and a threw out a letter of mine to Raff Miller, because a said’—
‘Well, well, I won’t trouble him with mine,’ said I, ‘Dorcas; but, instead, I will write to himself, Dorcas. But how shall I address him?’
‘Anan?’ was again Dorcas’s resource.
‘I mean how is he called? What is his name?’