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HOW THE OFFICE OF POSTMAN FELL VACANT IN OTFORD-UNDER-THE-WOLD
The duties of postman at Otford-under-the-Wold carried Amuel Sleggins
farther afield than the village, farther afield than the last house in
the lane, right up to the big bare wold and the house where no one
went, no one that is but the three grim men that dwelt there and the
secretive wife of one, and, once a year when the queer green letter
came, Amuel Sleggins the postman.
The green letter always came just as the leaves were turning,
addressed to the eldest of the three grim men, with a wonderful
Chinese stamp and the Otford post-mark, and Amuel Sleggins carried it
up to the house.
He was not afraid to go, for he always took the letter, had done so
for seven years, yet whenever summer began to draw to a close, Amuel
Sleggins was ill at ease, and if there was a touch of autumn about
shivered unduly so that all folk wondered.
And then one day a wind would blow from the East, and the wild geese
would appear, having left the sea, flying high and crying strangely,
and pass till they were no more than a thin black line in the sky like
a magical stick flung up by a doer of magic, twisting and twirling
away; and the leaves would turn on the trees and the mists be white on
the marshes and the sun set large and red and autumn would step down
quietly that night from the wold; and the next day the strange green
letter would come from China.
His fear of the three grim men and that secretive woman and their
lonely, secluded house, or else the cadaverous cold of the dying
season, rather braced Amuel when the time was come and he would step
out bolder upon the day that he feared than he had perhaps for weeks.
He longed on that day for a letter for the last house in the lane,
there he would dally and talk awhile and look on church-going faces
before his last tramp over the lonely wold to end at the dreaded door
of the queer grey house called wold-hut.
When he came to the door of wold-hut he would give the postman's knock
as though he came on ordinary rounds to a house of every day, although
no path led up to it, although the skins of weasels hung thickly from
upper windows.
And scarcely had his postman's knock rung through the dark of the
house when the eldest of the three grim men would always run to the
door. O, what a face had he. There was more slyness in it than ever
his beard could hide. He would put out a gristly hand; and into it
Amuel Sleggins would put the letter from China, and rejoice that his
duty was done, and would turn and stride away. And the fields lit up
before him, but, ominous, eager and low murmuring arose in the
wold-hut.
For seven years this was so and no harm had come to Sleggins, seven
times he had gone to wold-hut and as often come safely away; and then
he needs must marry. Perhaps because she was young, perhaps because
she was fair or because she had shapely ankles as she came one day
through the marshes among the milkmaid flowers shoeless in spring.
Less things than these have brought men to their ends and been the
nooses with which Fate snared them running. With marriage curiosity
entered his house, and one day as they walked with evening through the
meadows, one summer evening, she asked him of wold-hut where he only
went, and what the folks were like that no one else had seen. All this
he told her; and then she asked him of the green letter from China,
that came with autumn, and what the letter contained. He read to her
all the rules of the Inland Revenue, he told her he did not know, that
it was not right that he should know, he lectured her on the sin of
inquisitiveness, he quoted Parson, and in the end she said that she
must know. They argued concerning this for many days, days of the
ending of summer, of shortening evenings, and as they argued autumn
grew nearer and nearer and the green letter from China.
And at last he promised that when the green letter came he would take
it as usual to the lonely house and then hide somewhere near and creep
to the window at nightfall and hear what the grim folk said; perhaps
they might read aloud the letter from China. And before he had time
to repent of that promise a cold wind came one night and the woods
turned golden, the plover went in bands at evening over the marshes,
the year had turned, and there came the letter from China. Never
before had Amuel felt such misgivings as he went his postman's rounds,
never before had he so much feared the day that took him up to the
wold and the lonely house, while snug by the fire his wife looked
pleasurably forward to curiosity's gratification and hoped to have
news ere nightfall that all the gossips of the village would envy.
One consolation only had Amuel as he set out with a shiver, there was
a letter that day for the last house in the lane. Long did he tarry
there to look at their cheery faces, to hear the sound of their
laughter--you did not hear laughter in wold-hut--and when the last
topic had been utterly talked out and no excuse for lingering remained
he heaved a heavy sigh and plodded grimly away and so came late to
wold-hut.
He gave his postman's knock on the shut oak door, heard it reverberate
through the silent house, saw the grim elder man and his gristly hand,
gave up the green letter from China, and strode away. There is a clump
of trees growing all alone in the wold, desolate, mournful, by day, by
night full of ill omen, far off from all other trees as wold-hut from
other houses. Near it stands wold-hut. Not today did Amuel stride
briskly on with all the new winds of autumn blowing cheerily past him
till he saw the village before him and broke into song; but as soon as
he was out of sight of the house he turned and stooping behind a fold
of the ground ran back to the desolate wood. There he waited watching
the evil house, just too far to hear voices. The sun was low already.
He chose the window at which he meant to eavesdrop, a little barred
one at the back, close to the ground. And then the pigeons came in;
for a great distance there was no other wood, so numbers shelter
there, though the clump is small and of so evil a look (if they notice
that); the first one frightened Amuel, he felt that it might be a
spirit escaped from torture in some dim parlour of the house that he
watched, his nerves were strained and he feared foolish fears. Then
he grew used to them and the sun set then and the aspect of everything
altered and he felt strange fears again. Behind him was a hollow in
the wold, he watched it darkening; and before him he saw the house
through the trunks of the trees. He waited for them to light their
lamps so that they could not see, when he would steal up softly and
crouch by the little back window. But though every bird was home,
though the night grew chilly as tombs, though a star was out, still
there shone no yellow light from any window. Amuel waited and
shuddered. He did not dare to move till they lit their lamps, they
might be watching. The damp and the cold so strangely affected him
that autumn evening and the remnants of sunset, the stars and the wold
and the whole vault of the sky seemed like a hall that they had
prepared for Fear. He began to feel a dread of prodigious things, and
still no light shone in the evil house. It grew so dark that he
decided to move and make his way to the window in spite of the
stillness and though the house was dark. He rose and while standing
arrested by pains that cramped his limbs, he heard the door swing open
on the far side of the house. He had just time to hide behind the
trunk of a pine when the three grim men approached him and the woman
hobbled behind. Right to the ominous clump of trees they came as
though they loved their blackness, passed through within a yard or two
of the postman and squatted down on their haunches in a ring in the
hollow behind the trees. They lit a fire in the hollow and laid a kid
on the fire and by the light of it Amuel saw brought forth from an
untanned pouch the letter that came from China. The elder opened it
with his gristly hand and intoning words that Amuel did not know, drew
out from it a green powder and sprinkled it on the fire. At once a
flame arose and a wonderful savour, the flames rose higher and
flickered turning the trees all green; and Amuel saw the gods coming
to snuff the savour. While the three grim men prostrated themselves by
their fire, and the horrible woman that was the spouse of one, he saw
the gods coming gauntly over the wold, beheld the gods of Old England
hungrily snuffing the savour, Odin, Balder, and Thor, the gods of the
ancient people, beheld them eye to eye clear and close in the
twilight, and the office of postman fell vacant in
Otford-under-the-Wold.
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