having been smuggled,
was perpending what to say when she should get him home. The dancers,
pale and dusty, leant back in rows against the wall, and with their
handkerchiefs went through the motions of fanning or polishing,
according to sex. In their midst circulated Farmer Tresidder, with a
three-handled mug of shenachrum, hot from the embers, and furred with
wood-ash.

"Take an' drink, thirsty souls. Niver do I mind the Letterpooch so
footed i' my born days."

"'Twas conspirator--very conspirator," assented Old Zeb, screwing up his
A string a trifle, and turning _con spirito_ into a dark saying.

"What's that?"

"Greek for elbow-grease. Phew!" He rubbed his fore-finger round
between neck and shirt-collar. "I be vady as the inside of a winder."

"Such a man as you be to sweat, crowder!" exclaimed Calvin Oke.
"Set you to play six-eight time an' 'tis beads right away."

"A slice o' saffern-cake, crowder, to stay ye. Don't say no. Hi, Mary
Jane!"

"Thank 'ee, Farmer. A man might say you was in sperrits to-night,
makin' so bold."

"I be; I be."

"Might a man ax wherefore, beyond the nat'ral hail-fellow-well-met of
the season?"

"You may, an' yet you mayn't," answered the host, passing on with the
mug.

"Uncle Issy," asked Jim Lewarne, lurching up, "I durstn' g-glint over my
shoulder--but wud 'ee mind tellin' me if th' old woman's lookin' this
way--afore I squench my thirst?"

"Iss, she be."

Jim groaned. "Then wud 'ee mind a-hofferin' me a taste out o' your
pannikin? an' I'll make b'lieve to say 'Norronany' count.' Amazin' 'ot
t' night," he added, tilting back on his heels, and then dipping forward
with a vague smile.

Uncle Issy did as he was required, and the henpecked one played his part
of the comedy with elaborate slyness. "I don't like that strange
chap," he announced, irrelevantly.

"Nor I nuther," agreed Elias Sweetland, "tho' to be sure, I've a-kept my
eye 'pon en, an' the wonders he accomplishes in an old pair o'
Tresidder's high-lows must be seen to be believed. But that's no call
for Ruby's dancin' wi' he a'most so much as wi' her proper man."

"The gel's takin' her fling afore wedlock. I heard Sarah Ann Nanjulian,
just now, sayin' she ought to be clawed."

"A jealous woman is a scourge shaken to an' fro," said Old Zeb;
"but I've a mind, friends, to strike up 'Randy my dandy,' for that son
o' mine is lookin' blacker than the horned man, an' may be 'twill
comfort 'en to dan