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It was with such thoughts that I took up my hat the next morning to seek Vivian, and judge if we had gained the right clew, when we were startled by what was a rare sound at our door, the postman's knock. My father was at the Museum; my mother in high conference, or close preparation for our approaching departure, with Mrs. Primmins; Roland, I, and Blanche had the room to ourselves.
Nearly a week later Joyce sat at her desk, hurrying to finish a letter before the postman's arrival. "Dear Jack," it began. "You and Mary will each get a letter this week. Hers is the fairy tale that Cousin Kate told me, about an old gate near here. I wrote it down as well as I could remember. I wish you could see that gate.
And at last they asked him what he had in his sack, the question he clearly dreaded; and he only clasped yet tighter the sodden sack and mumbled he had potatoes. "Potatoes," said Yon the blacksmith. "Potatoes," said Willie Losh. And when he heard the doubt that was in their voices the old man shivered and moaned. "Potatoes, did you say?" said the postman's son.
His wife was sitting on the stool, and with her hands pressed against her cheeks was gazing at the postman's face. Her face was immovable, like the face of some one frightened and astonished. "Well, what are you gaping at?" Savely whispered angrily. "What is it to you? Lie down!" answered his wife without taking her eyes off the flaxen head.
'Next day, slinging on one side a postman's brown bag containing my kit and provisions; on the other an angler's waterproof bag, with books, &c.; and carrying from a stick over my shoulder a Chinaman's sheepskin coat, I left my landlord drinking the two ounces of hot Chinese whisky which formed the invariable introduction to his breakfast turned my face northwards, and started for a twenty-three miles' walk to the settlement which, for some summers in succession, has furnished me with men and oxen for my annual journeys.
The rays of the lantern were rendered individually visible upon the thick mist, and seemed almost tangible as they passed off into it, after illuminating the faces and knees of the two stooping figures dripping with wet; the postman's cape and private bags, and the steward's valise, glistening as if they had been varnished. 'It fell on the grass, said the postman.
McTeague had been making fillings when this letter arrived. He was in his "Parlors," pottering over his movable rack underneath the bird cage in the bay window. He was making "blocks" to be used in large proximal cavities and "cylinders" for commencing fillings. He heard the postman's step in the hall and saw the envelopes begin to shuttle themselves through the slit of his letter-drop.
The very Tuesday morning on which Mr Johnson was going to show the fashions, the post-woman brought two letters to the house. I say the post-woman, but I should say the postman's wife.
The dogs are more faithful, and their wisdom becomes positively uncanny, for always at the routine times for boats going ashore they will be found waiting ready at the top of the gangway. "Ginger" was an Irish terrier of plebeian origin belonging to a battleship. He invariably landed in the postman's boat at 6.45 a.m., and once ashore went off on his own business.
It was a hopeful triumph of cultivated nice-mindedness over the most evil communications. When they were at dessert, the postman's knock resounded sharply. Dr. Maclure, who had been anxiously listening for it, and was peeling a pear for Miss Petterick at the moment, waited with the pear and the knife upheld in his hands, watching the door till the servant entered.
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