traw,
Comfort, Mitchell, Beach, and Snooks, together with some small beginnings
of Fencible Tremlett's posterity. In the rear came David, and quite in
the vanishing-point of the composition, Anne the fair.

'I drove over; and so was forced to come by the road,' said Bob.

'And we went across the fields, thinking you'd walk,' said his father.

'I should have been here this morning; but not so much as a wheelbarrow
could I get for my traps; everything was gone to the review. So I went
too, thinking I might meet you there. I was then obliged to return to
the harbour for the luggage.'

Then there was a welcoming of Captain Bob by pulling out his arms like
drawers and shutting them again, smacking him on the back as if he were
choking, holding him at arm's length as if he were of too large type to
read close. All which persecution Bob bore with a wide, genial smile
that was shaken into fragments and scattered promiscuously among the
spectators.

'Get a chair for 'n!' said the miller to David, whom they had met in the
fields and found to have got nothing worse by his absence than a slight
slant in his walk.

'Never mind--I am not tired--I have been here ever so long,' said Bob.
'And I--' But the chair having been placed behind him, and a smart touch
in the hollow of a person's knee by the edge of that piece of furniture
having a tendency to make the person sit without further argument, Bob
sank down dumb, and the others drew up other chairs at a convenient
nearness for easy analytic vision and the subtler forms of good
fellowship. The miller went about saying, 'David, the nine best glasses
from the corner cupboard!'--'David, the corkscrew!'--'David, whisk the
tail of thy smock-frock round the inside of these quart pots afore you
draw drink in 'em--they be an inch thick in dust!'--'David, lower that
chimney-crook a couple of notches that the flame may touch the bottom of
the kettle, and light three more of the largest candles!'--'If you can't
get the cork out of the jar, David, bore a hole in the tub of Hollands
that's buried under the scroff in the fuel-house; d'ye hear?--Dan Brown
left en there yesterday as a return for the little porker I gied en.'

When they had all had a thimbleful round, and the superfluous neighbours
had reluctantly departed, one by one, the inmates gave their minds to the
supper, which David had begun to serve up.

'What be you rolling back the tablecloth for, David?' said the miller.