o horsehair bags with a rammer, and
Gad Weedy, his man, was occupied in shovelling up more from a tub at
his side. The shovel shone like silver from the action of the juice,
and ever and anon, in its motion to and fro, caught the rays of the
declining sun and reflected them in bristling stars of light.

Mr. Springrove had been too young a man when the pristine days of the
Three Tranters had departed for ever to have much of the host left in
him now. He was a poet with a rough skin: one whose sturdiness was
more the result of external circumstances than of intrinsic nature. Too
kindly constituted to be very provident, he was yet not imprudent.
He had a quiet humorousness of disposition, not out of keeping with a
frequent melancholy, the general expression of his countenance being one
of abstraction. Like Walt Whitman he felt as his years increased--

'I foresee too much; it means more than I thought.'

On the present occasion he wore gaiters and a leathern apron, and worked
with his shirt-sleeves rolled up beyond his elbows, disclosing solid and
fleshy rather than muscular arms. They were stained by the cider, and
two or three brown apple-pips from the pomace he was handling were to be
seen sticking on them here and there.

The other prominent figure was that of Richard Crickett, the parish
clerk, a kind of Bowdlerized rake, who ate only as much as a woman,
and had the rheumatism in his left hand. The remainder of the group,
brown-faced peasants, wore smock-frocks embroidered on the shoulders
with hearts and diamonds, and were girt round their middle with a strap,
another being worn round the right wrist.

'And have you seen the steward, Mr. Springrove?' said the clerk.

'Just a glimpse of him; but 'twas just enough to show me that he's not
here for long.'

'Why mid that be?'

'He'll never stand the vagaries of the female figure holden the
reins--not he.'

'She d' pay en well,' said a grinder; 'and money's money.'

'Ah--'tis: very much so,' the clerk replied.

'Yes, yes, naibour Crickett,' said Springrove, 'but she'll vlee in a
passion--all the fat will be in the fire--and there's an end o't....
Yes, she is a one,' continued the farmer, resting, raising his eyes, and
reading the features of a distant apple.

'She is,' said Gad, resting too (it is wonderful how prompt a journeyman
is in following his master's initiative to rest) and reflectively
regarding the ground in front of him.

'True: a one is s