28 
Mr. Beaufort was only able to be at Keswick ten days, when he 
was called away to take charge of the office at Berwick-upon Tweed, 
where he remained three months. He did the best he could to 
instruct me during his short stay. It was the season of the year 
when there is least correspondence. He invited me to his lodging 
in the evening, to read over the rules, and to ask questions where 
I wanted explanation. The evening before I took charge, while 
thus engaged, two friends called to seehim. He gave me holiday, 
and enjoyed the evening with Mr. Lawrence Harrison and Mr. 
John Feather. Mr. Beaufort had been subject to acute attacks of 
asthma from his infancy. He was seized in the night, and had 
propped himself up in bed with pillows. He sent me word to 
dispatch the Wigton mail the best I could, and he would come 
down later in the day. I did so. There was a letter for Carlisle 
which I should have passed unnoticed, but it was unstamped, and 
had to be charged twopence, I entered this to Wigton upon the 
letter bill, and told him what I had done. ‘You will be reported 
for that,” said he. Oddly, Mr. Tilley, his chief, called to see his 
friend Beaufort, and look into the office, just when we were 
opening the letter bags, when Mr. Beaufort spied the report and 
said, “ There you are—did not I tell you!” He knew how keen 
the apprentice assistants were in the Wigton office to report, as my 
predecessor knew to his disgust. I can hardly say how mortified 
I was. But I had a great deal to learn from reports after this, in 
the course of threading my way into the regulations which were 
even then so numerous that it took months to learn them all. I 
never, so long as I had the office, examined the official corre- 
spondence without a sense of relief when I had seenit all. But it 
was not always necessary to send reports, where people were 
friendly disposed. I had sent a Peterborough letter to Lancaster 
to forward by mistake. The postmistress, Mrs. Mc.Glasson, wrote 
upon the top of the letter bill, “ Your Peterborough letters should 
go to London.” ‘This photographed the information upon my 
memory much more agreeably than a formal report would have 
done. 
The delivery of letters at this time was by post-woman Mary 
