It frequently happened that the houses of farmers, clergymen, etc., lay a short distance up or down a lane or path branching from the direct track of the postman’s journey.  To save time and distance, at the point of junction of some of these paths with the main road, the gate-post was hollowed out to form a letter-box, in which the postman deposited his missives in the morning, looking in the box again in the evening to collect those placed there for the return post.  Tolchurch Vicarage and Farmstead, lying back from the village street, were served on this principle.  This fact the steward now learnt by conversing with the postman, and the discovery relieved Manston greatly, making his intentions much clearer to himself than they had been in the earlier stages of his journey.

They had reached the outskirts of the village.  Manston insisted upon the flask being emptied before they proceeded further.  This was done, and they approached the church, the vicarage, and the farmhouse in which Owen and Cytherea were living.

The postman paused, fumbled in his bag, took out by the light of his lantern some half-dozen letters, and tried to sort them.  He could not perform the task.

‘We be crippled disciples a b’lieve,’ he said, with a sigh and a stagger.

‘Not drunk, but market-merry,’ said Manston cheerfully.

’Well done!  If I baint so weak that I can’t see the clouds—­much less letters.  Guide my soul, if so be anybody should tell the Queen’s postmaster-general of me!  The whole story will have to go through Parliament House, and I shall be high-treasoned—­as safe as houses—­and be fined, and who’ll pay for a poor martel!  O, ’tis a world!’

‘Trust in the Lord—­he’ll pay.’

’He pay a b’lieve! why should he when he didn’t drink the drink?  He pay a b’lieve!  D’ye think the man’s a fool?’

’Well, well, I had no intention of hurting your feelings—­but how was I to know you were so sensitive?’

‘True—­you were not to know I was so sensitive.  Here’s a caddle wi’ these letters!  Guide my soul, what will Billy do!’

Manston offered his services.

‘They are to be divided,’ the man said.

‘How?’ said Manston.

’These, for the village, to be carried on into it:  any for the vicarage or vicarage farm must be left in the box of the gate-post just here.  There’s none for the vicarage-house this mornen, but I saw when I started there was one for the clerk o’ works at the new church.  This is it, isn’t it?’

He held up a large envelope, directed in Edward Springrove’s handwriting:—­

     ’MR. O. GRAYE,
          CLERK OF WORKS,
               TOLCHURCH,
                    NEAR ANGLEBURY.’

The letter-box was scooped in an oak gate-post about a foot square.  There was no slit for inserting the letters, by reason of the opportunity such a lonely spot would have afforded mischievous peasant-boys of doing damage had such been the case; but at the side was a small iron door, kept close by an iron reversible strap locked across it.  One side of this strap was painted black, the other white, and white or black outwards implied respectively that there were letters inside, or none.