A way-side hostelry, six miles from London, bearing its swinging sign of the silver hawk and golden heron. It was a little, low-roofed place, with a drinking-bar in front as you entered, and rooms opening from it on either hand.

The door of the room to the left was shut. One could hear the voices of children within, and sometimes a peal of their merry laughter. The room to the right stood open to the bar. It was a smoky place, with a few chairs, a long deal table, a bench with a back, a form against the wall, pipes that hung on nails, and a rough beam across the low ceiling.

A big fire burned in an open grate on a hearth without a fender. In front of it, coiled up in a huge chair like a canoe, that had a look of having been hewn straight from the tree, sat the only occupant of the room. The man wore a tweed suit of the indefinite pattern known as pepper and salt. His hat was drawn heavily over his face to protect his eyes from the glare of the fire-light. He gave satisfactory evidence that he slept.

Under any light but that 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."

"So that's the time o' day, is it?" The speaker gave a prolonged whistle and turned a suggestive glance into the faces of his companions. "Well, I allus says to my old woman, 'Bide quiet,' I says, 'and it'll leak out,' and sure enough, so it has."

The landlady fired up.

"And I allus says to your missus, 'Mistress Sturgis,' I says, 'it do make me that wexed to see a man a-prying into other people's business and a-talking and a-scandalizing, which it is bad in a woman, where you expects no better, as the saying is, but it ain't no ways bearsome in a man—and I wish you'd keep him,' I says, 'from poking his nose, as you might say, into other people's pewters.' There—that's what I allus says to your missis."

"And very perwerse of you, too," said the worthy addressed, speaking with the easy good-nature of one who could afford to be rated. "And wot's to prevent me having a screw of twist on the strength of it," putting a penny on the counter.

The landlady threw down the paper of tobacco, picked up the penny, and cast it into the till.

"On'y, as I say, there's no use denying now as Mister Paul Drayton has a finger in the young missy's pie."

"There, that's enough o' that. I told you afore she never set eyes on him till a fortnight come Sunday."

Two women came into the bar with jugs.

"And how is the young missy?" asked the elder of the two, catching up the conversation as the landlady served her.

"She's there," said the landlady, rather indefinitely, indicating with a sidelong nod the room to the left with the closed door.

At that moment the laughter of the children could be heard from within.

"She's merry over it, at any rate, though I did hear a whisper," said the woman, "as she feeds two when she eats her wittals, as the saying is."

The men laughed.

"That's being overcur'ous, mistress," said one, as the woman passed out sniggering.

"Such baggage oughtn't to be taken in to live with respectable people," said the other woman, the younger one, who wore a showy bonnet and a little gay ribbon at her neck.

"And that's being overcharitable," said another voice. "It's the women for charity, especially to one of themselves."

"It's cur'osity as is the mischief i' this world," said the drowsy-eyed countryman. "People talk o' the root o' all evil, and some says drink, and some says money, and some says rheumatis, but I says cur'osity. Show me the man as ain't cur'ous, and he don't go a-poking his nose into every stink-pot, as you might say."

"Of course not," said the gentleman addressed as Luke Sturgis. "And show me the man as ain't cur'ous" he said, with a wink, "and I'll show you the man as is good at a plough and inwalable at a ditch, and wery near worth his weight in gold at gapping a hedge, and mucking up a horse-midden, and catching them nasty moles wot ruin the county worse nor wars and publicans and parsons."