“If ’twas the Queen’s letter, she could read it,” he urged obstinately.
“And so she can,” rejoined Bundock. “She has the right to open any letter smelling of high treason, so to speak, and nobody can say her nay.”
“But my letter ain’t high treasony,” said Caleb indignantly. “And if Wictoria wants to read it, why God bless her, says Oi.”
Bundock sighed before the bovinity of the illiterate mind.
“The Queen has got better things to do than read every scribble her head’s stuck on to.”
“Happen Oi could ha’ retched it with a rake,” Caleb mused. “What a pity you ain’t got spladges, like when Oi was a buoy-oy, and gatherin’ pin-patches on the sands. And fine and fat they was too when ye got ’em on the pin!” His tongue clucked.
Bundock looked his contempt. “A pretty sight, Her Majesty’s uniform lumbering along like a winkle-picker!”
“Bide a bit then,” said Caleb, “and Oi’ll thrash through the hedge and work through agen in your rear.”
It was a chivalrous offer, for a deep ditch barred the way to the freshly ploughed land, and a tough and prickly chaos to the pasture land; but Bundock declined churlishly, if not unheroically, declaring there was a letter for Frog Cottage too. And when Caleb, recovering from this vindication of his wife’s prophesyings, offered to transmit it to the shepherd, “What guarantee have I,” asked Bundock, “that it reaches him safely, legally, and constitutionally? Nay, nay, uncle, a man must do his own jobs.”
“Then work through the bushes yourself. Don’t, ye’ll be fit to grow crops on.”
“Lord, how I hate going round—circumbendibus!” groaned Bundock. “I might as well be driving a post-cart.”
“There’s a mort of worser things than gooin’ round,” said Caleb. “And Oi do be marvelling a young chap like you should mind a bit of extra leg-work, bein’ as how ye’ve got naught else to do but to put one leg afore the ’tother.”
“Indeed?” snapped Bundock, this ignorant summary of his duties aggravating the moist clayey consciousness that resided at the seat of Her Majesty’s trousers.
“Ef ye won’t keep to the high roads, you ought to git a hoss what can clear everything,” Caleb went on to advise.
“Posty always had a hoss when I was a cad.”
“Or lay in the road with a broken back and Her Majesty’s mail at the mercy of every tramp?” pursued Bundock. “No, no, one cripple in a family is enough.”