refused to accept payment. As she was a handsome young woman, with a
clear, pleasant voice, I was glad to have her sit there and talk to me
while I refreshed myself. Besides, I was in search of information and
got it from her during our talk. My object in going to the village was
to see a woman who, I had been told, was living there. I now heard that
her cottage was close by, but unfortunately, while anxious to see her, I
had no excuse for calling.

"Do you think," said I to my young hostess, "that it would do to tell
her that I had heard something of her strange history and misfortunes,
and wished to offer her a little help? Is she very poor?"

"Oh, no," she replied. "Please do not offer her money, if you see her.
She would be offended. There is no one in this village who would take a
shilling as a gift from a stranger. We all have enough; there is not a
poor person among us."

"What a happy village!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps you are all total
abstainers."

She laughed, and said that they all brewed their own beer--there was not
a total abstainer among them. Every cottager made from fifty to eighty
gallons, or more, and they drank beer every day, but very moderately,
while it lasted. They were all very sober; their children would have to
go to some neighbouring village to see a tipsy man.

I remarked that at the next village, which had three public-houses,
there were a good marry persons so poor that they would gladly at any
time take a shilling from any one.

It was the same everywhere in the district, she said, except in that
village which had no public-house. Not only were they better off, and
independent of blanket societies and charity in all forms, but they were
infinitely happier. And after the day's work the men came home to spend
the evening with their wives and children.

At this stage I was surprised by a sudden burst of passion on her part.
She stood up, her face flushing red, and solemnly declared that if
ever a public-house was opened in that village, and if the men took
to spending their evenings in it, her husband with them, she would
not endure such a condition of things--she wondered that so many women
endured it--but would take her little ones and go away to earn her own
living under some other roof!

Chapter Five: Wind, Wave, and Spirit

The rambles I have described were mostly inland: when by chance they
took us down to the sea our impressions and adventures appeared less
interesti