Chapter 4

DISQUIETUDE

The ladies of Scargate Hall were uneasy, although the weather was so
fine, upon this day of early August, in the year now current. It was a
remarkable fact, that in spite of the distance they slept asunder, which
could not be less than five-and-thirty yards, both had been visited by
a dream, which appeared to be quite the same dream until examined
narrowly, and being examined, grew more surprising in its points of
difference. They were much above paying any heed to dreams, though
instructed by the patriarchs to do so; and they seemed to be quite
getting over the effects, when the lesson and the punishment astonished
them.

Lately it had been established (although many leading people went
against it, and threatened to prosecute the man for trespass) that here
in these quiet and reputable places, where no spy could be needed, a man
should come twice every week with letters, and in the name of the
king be paid for them. Such things were required in towns, perhaps, as
corporations and gutters were; but to bring them where people could mind
their own business, and charge them two groats for some fool who knew
their names, was like putting a tax upon their christening. So it was
the hope of many, as well as every one's belief, that the postman, being
of Lancastrian race, would very soon be bogged, or famished, or get lost
in a fog, or swept off by a flood, or go and break his own neck from a
precipice.

The postman, however, was a wiry fellow, and as tough as any native, and
he rode a pony even tougher than himself, whose cradle was a marsh, and
whose mother a mountain, his first breath a fog, and his weaning meat
wire-grass, and his form a combination of sole-leather and corundum. He
wore no shoes for fear of not making sparks at night, to know the road
by, and although his bit had been a blacksmith's rasp, he would yield
to it only when it suited him. The postman, whose name was George King
(which confounded him with King George, in the money to pay), carried a
sword and blunderbuss, and would use them sooner than argue.

Now this man and horse had come slowly along, without meaning any
mischief, to deliver a large sealed packet, with sixteen pence to pay
put upon it, "to Mistress Philippa Yordas, etc., her own hands, and
speed, speed, speed;" which they carried out duly by stop, stop, stop,
whensoever they were hungry, or saw any thing to look at. None the less
for that, though with certainty much later, they arrived in good trim,
by the middle of the day, and ready for the comfort which they both
deserved.

As yet it was not considered safe to trust any tidings of importance to
the post in such a world as this was; and even were it safe, it would be
bad