There remains to be considered the village post office itself, and post office architecture is usually a rather painful subject. The modern standard post office is obviously built for utility, and little regard is paid to what fits in with the spirit of the place. But there are hundreds of village post offices all over the United Kingdom which are the delight of the artist and the tourist. Just as a hymn or a psalm seems to contain an added beauty because of the feeling in the singer that it has perhaps brought joy and consolation to men and women through the centuries, so the little gabled cottage or shop covered with ivy appeals to us not only through its beauty but through its long connection with the joys and sorrows of the village. Those of us who have visited Tintagel know the cottage called the “old post office.” It is of the fourteenth century, small but commodious; it has a fireplace which is so constructed that the inhabitants could sit round the fire without being betrayed by the light to passers-by. It is fitted up with conveniences for the use of smugglers. And over all stretch great roof timbers black with the smoke of ages. That, however, is a disused post office; there are beautiful offices still to be found, especially in our southern villages, and every lover of the country-side demands of the Post Office authorities that the standard pattern should be confined to the suburbs and the new townships. We will willingly put up with a village postmaster who indulges in euphonious spelling if they leave us our pretty ivy-clad post office full of associations which bind it to the village. CHAPTER XXII THE POSTMAN It is easy to be eloquent on the subject of the postman. He is the outward and visible sign to us all of the postal service. He brings it to our doors. He has persisted, while other officials and other methods have passed away to make room for modern improvements. Post-boys, mail coaches, and mail trains have in turn carried our letters across country at increasing rates of speed, but the last stage, viz. the actual delivery of the letter, is still left to the postman. And I suppose his average rate of speed is a very little higher than it was two hundred years ago.