Post Haste | Page 3

days past."
"It's not exactly a letter, Master Phil," said the post-runner slowly.
"Ah, then, she'd never put us off with a newspaper," said Phil.
"No, it's a telegram," returned Mike.
Phil Maylands looked thoughtfully at the ground. "A telegram," he said,
"that's strange. Are ye sure, Mike?"
"Troth am I."
Without another word the boy started off at a quick walk, followed by
his friend and the post-runner. The latter had to diverge at that place to
leave a letter at the house of a man named Patrick Grady. Hence, for a
short distance, they followed the same road.
Young Maylands would have passed the house, but as Grady was an

intimate friend of George Aspel, he agreed to stop just to shake hands.
Patrick Grady was the soul of hospitality. He was not to be put off with
a mere shake of the hand, not he--telegrams meant nothing now-a-days,
he said, everybody sent them. No cause for alarm. They must stop and
have a glass of mountain dew.
Aspel was resolute, however; he would not sit down, though he had no
objection to the mountain dew. Accordingly, the bottle was produced,
and a full glass was poured out for Aspel, who quaffed off the pure
spirit with a free-and-easy toss and smack of the lips, that might have
rendered one of the beery old sea-kings envious.
"No, sur, I thank ye," said Mike, when a similar glass was offered to
him.
"What! ye haven't taken the pledge, have ye?" said Grady.
"No, sur; but I've had three glasses already on me walk, an' that's as
much as I can rightly carry."
"Nonsense, Mike. You've a stiff climb before you--here, take it off."
The facile postman did take it off without further remonstrance.
"Have a dhrop, Phil?"
"No, thank ee," said Phil, firmly, but without giving a reason for
declining.
Being a boy, he was not pressed to drink, and the party left the house.
A short distance farther on the road forked, and here the post-runner
turned off to the right, taking the path which led towards the hill whose
rugged shoulder he had yet to scale.
Mike Kenny breasted it not only with the energy of youth and strength,
but with the additional and artificial energy infused by the spirits, so
that, much to his own surprise, his powers began to fail prematurely.
Just then a storm of wind and sleet came down from the heights above,

and broke with bitter fury in his face. He struggled against it vigorously
for a time till he gained a point whence he saw the dark blue sea lashing
on the cliffs below. He looked up at the pass which was almost hid by
the driving sleet. A feeling of regret and self-condemnation at having
so readily given in to Grady was mingled with a strong sense of the
duty that he had to discharge as he once more breasted the steep. The
bitter cold began to tell on his exhausted frame. In such circumstances a
small matter causes a man to stumble. Kenny's foot caught on
something--a root it might be--and he fell headlong into a ditch and was
stunned. The cold did its work, and from that ditch he never rose again.
Meanwhile Mr Grady looked out from the window of his cottage upon
the gathering storm, expressed some satisfaction that it did not fall to
his lot to climb hills on such a day, and comforted himself--though he
did not appear to stand in need of special comfort--with another glass
of whisky.
George Aspel and Philip Maylands, with their backs to the storm,
hurried homewards; the former exulting in the grand--though somewhat
disconnected--thoughts infused into his fiery soul by the fire-water he
had imbibed, and dreaming of what he would have dared and done had
he only been a sea-king of the olden time; the latter meditating
somewhat anxiously on the probable nature of his sister's telegram.
CHAPTER TWO.
TELLS OF WOMAN'S WORK AND SOME OF WOMAN'S WAYS.
Many, and varied, and strange, are the duties which woman has to
perform in this life--especially in that wonderful and gigantic phase of
this life which is comprehended in the word London.
One chill December afternoon there sat in front of a strange-looking
instrument a woman--at least she was as nearly a woman as is
compatible with the age of seventeen. She was also pretty--not
beautiful, observe, but pretty--sparklingly pretty; dark, dimpled,
demure and delightful in every way; with a turn-up nose, a laughing
eye, and a kindly look.

Her chief duty, from morning to night, consisted in playing with her
pretty little fingers on three white pianoforte keys. There were no other
keys--black or white--in connection with these three. They stood alone
and had no music whatever in them--nothing but a