ley.
Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling in the various
domiciles--a piped note of some kind coming from nearly every open door.
Another was the frequency of white aprons over dingy gowns among the
women around the doorways. A white apron is a suspicious vesture in
situations where spotlessness is difficult; moreover, the industry and
cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by the postures
and gaits of the women who wore it--their knuckles being mostly on their
hips (an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and
their shoulders against door-posts; while there was a curious alacrity
in the turn of each honest woman's head upon her neck and in the twirl
of her honest eyes, at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along
the lane.

Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectability also found a home.
Under some of the roofs abode pure and virtuous souls whose presence
there was due to the iron hand of necessity, and to that alone. Families
from decayed villages--families of that once bulky, but now
nearly extinct, section of village society called "liviers," or
lifeholders--copyholders and others, whose roof-trees had fallen for
some reason or other, compelling them to quit the rural spot that had
been their home for generations--came here, unless they chose to lie
under a hedge by the wayside.

The inn called Peter's Finger was the church of Mixen Lane.

It was centrally situate, as such places should be, and bore about the
same social relation to the Three Mariners as the latter bore to
the King's Arms. At first sight the inn was so respectable as to be
puzzling. The front door was kept shut, and the step was so clean that
evidently but few persons entered over its sanded surface. But at the
corner of the public-house was an alley, a mere slit, dividing it from
the next building. Half-way up the alley was a narrow door, shiny and
paintless from the rub of infinite hands and shoulders. This was the
actual entrance to the inn.

A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen Lane; and
then, in a moment, he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like
Ashton at the disappearance of Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian
had edged into the slit by the adroit fillip of his person sideways;
from the slit he edged into the tavern by a similar exercise of skill.

The company at the Three Mariners were persons of quality in comparison
with the company which ga