Michael McGrath, Postmaster | Page 2

a jail, or a big disthillery."
Then, like a dream from the past, it came to me that he was talking of
that bloody fight about and in the "Secunderabogh," where, through a
breach two feet square, the men of the Ninety-third, man by man,
forced their way in the face of a thousand Sepoys, mad for blood and,
with their bayonets, piled high in gory heaps the bodies of their black
foes, crying with every thrust, in voices hoarse with rage and dust,
"Cawnpore! Cawnpore!" That tale Ould Michael would never tell till
his cups had carried him far beyond the stage of dignity and reserve.
After he had helped me to picket my ponies and pitch my tent, he led
me by a little gate through his garden to the side door of the cabin.
The garden was trim, like Ould Michael himself, set out in rectangular
beds, by gravel-walks and low-cut hedges of "old man." It was filled
with all the dear old-fashioned flowers--Sweet William and Sweet
Mary, bachelor's buttons, pansies and mignonette, old country daisies
and snapdragons and lilies of the valley and, in the centre of the beds,

great masses of peonies, while all around, peeping from under the
hedges of old man, were poppies of every hue. Beyond the garden there
was a plot of potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables and, best of all and
more beautiful than all, over the whole front of the cabin, completely
hiding the rough logs, ran a climbing rose, a mass of fragrant bloom.
Ould Michael lingered lovingly for a moment among his flowers, and
then led me into the house.
The room into which we entered was a wonder for preciseness and
order. The walls were decorated with prints, much-faded photographs,
stuffed birds, heads of deer and a quaint collection of old-fashioned
guns, pistols and bayonets, but all arranged with an exactness and taste
that would drive mad the modern artistic decorator. On one side of the
window hung a picture of Wellington: on the other, that of Sir Colin.
To the right of the clock, on a shelf, stood a stuffed mallard; to the left
on a similar shelf, stood a stuffed owl. The same balance was diligently
preserved in the arrangement of his weapons of war. A pine table stood
against one wall, flanked by a home-made chair on either side. A door
opened to the left into a bedroom, as I supposed; another, to the right,
into what Ould Michael designated "My office, sir."
"Office?" I inquired.
"Yes, sir," still preserving his manual of ceremony, "Her Majesty's mail
for Grand Bend."
"And you are the Postmaster?" I said, throwing into my voice the
respect and awe that I felt were expected.
"That same," with a salute.
"That explains the flag, then; you are bound to keep that flying, I
suppose."
"Bound, sir? Yes, but by no law is it."
"How, then?"

"For twenty-five years I marched and fought under that same flag," said
the old soldier, dropping into his brogue, "and under it, plaze God, I'll
die."
I looked at the old man. In his large dark-blue eyes shone that "fire that
never slumbers"--the fire of loyal valor, with its strange power to
transform common clay into men of heroic mould. The flag, the garden,
the postoffice--these were Ould Michael's household gods. The
equipment of the postoffice was primitive enough.
"Where are the boxes?" I inquired; "the letter-boxes, you know; to put
the letters into."
"An' what wud I do puttin' them into boxes, at all?"
"Why, to distribute the mail so that you could find every man's letter
when he calls for it."
"An' what would I be doin' findin' a man's letter for him? Shure an'
can't he find it himself on the counter there?" pointing to a wide plank
that ran along the wall.
I explained fully the ordinary system of distributing mail to him.
"Indade, 'tis a complicated system intoirely," and then he proceeded to
explain his own, which he described as "simple and unpretenshus" and,
sure enough, it was; for the letters were strewn upon the top of the
counter, the papers and other mail-matter thrown underneath, and every
man helped himself to his own.
"But might there not be mistakes?" I suggested. "A man might take his
neighbor's letter."
"An' what would he do wid another man's letter forby the discooshun
that might enshoo?"
I was very soon to have an opportunity of observing the working of
Ould Michael's system, for next day was mailday and, in the early

afternoon, men began to arrive from the neighboring valleys for their
monthly mail. Ould Michael introduced me to them all with much
ceremony and I could easily see that he was a personage of importance
among them. Not only was he, as