mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger
in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel.
She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a
discreet distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the
shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger's occupation.

The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney-corner,
with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 'Anybody may know my trade--I'm a
wheelwright.'

'A very good trade for these parts,' said the shepherd.

'And anybody may know mine--if they've the sense to find it out,' said
the stranger in cinder-gray.

'You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,' observed the hedge-
carpenter, looking at his own hands. 'My fingers be as full of thorns as
an old pin-cushion is of pins.'

The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the
shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the
table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, 'True; but
the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it
sets a mark upon my customers.'

No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma,
the shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles
presented themselves as at the former time--one had no voice, another had
forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now
risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by
exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing himself. Thrusting
one thumb into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in
the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks
above the mantelpiece, began:-

'O my trade it is the rarest one,
Simple shepherds all -
My trade is a sight to see;
For my customers I tie, and take them up on high,
And waft 'em to a far countree!'

The room was silent when he had finished the verse--with one exception,
that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word,
'Chorus! 'joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish -

'And waft 'em to a far countree!'

Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged
man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in
thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the
ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, a