hat of the fire, the place must have looked
cheerless to desolation, but the comfortless room was alive with the
fire's palpitating heart. The rosy flames danced over the sleeper's
tawny hair, over the sanded floor, over the walls adorned with gaudy
prints. They threw shadows and then caught them back again; flashed a
ruddy face out of the little cracked window, and then lay still while
the blue night looked in.

An old woman, with a yellow face deeply wrinkled, served behind the bar.
Two or three carriers and hawkers sat on a bench before it. One of these
worthies screwed up the right side of his face with an expression of
cutting irony.

"Burn my body, though, but what an inwalable thing to have a son wot
never need do no work!"

The old woman lifted her eyes.

"There, enough of that," she said, and then jerked her head toward the
room from whence came measured snores. "He'll be working at throwing you
out, some of you, same as he did young Bobby on Sunday sennight."

"Like enough. He don't know which side his bread is buttered, he don't."

"His bread?" said another, an old road-mender, with a scornful dig of
emphasis. "His old mother's, you mean. Don't you notice as folks as eat
other folks' bread, and earn none for theirselves, never knows no more
nor babbies which side the butter is on?"

"Hold your tongue, Luke Sturgis!" said the old woman. "Mayhap you think
it's you're pint of half-and-half as keeps us all out of the union."

"Now you're a-goin' to get wexed, Mrs. Drayton. So wot's to prevent me
having another pint, just to get that fine son of yourn an extra cigar
or so. Hold hard with the pewter, though. I'll drain off what's left, if
convenient."

A drowsy-eyed countryman, with a dog snoring at his feet, said:

"Been to Lunnon again," and pointed the shank of his pipe in the
direction of the sleeping man. "Got the Lunnon smell on his clothes. I
allus knows it forty perches off."

"You're wrong, then, Mr. Wiseman," said the old woman, "and he ain't got
no smell of no Lunnon on his clothes this day, anyways. For he's been
where there ain't no smell no more nor in Hendon, leastways unless the
mount'ins smells and the cataracks and the sheeps."

"The mount'ins? And has Master Paul been along of the mount'ins?"

"Yes; Cummerland, that's the mountains, and fur off, too, I've heerd."

"Cummerland? Ain't that the part as the young missy comes from?"

"Mayhap it is; I wouldn't be for saying no to that.