"
"I intend to stay the night, so will you please have a fire lighted in
your best--"
"Thirty-five shillin's the word--in my 'and--this moment--my fine
little gent--that's wot!"
Feeling myself quite powerless to cope with this drunken creature, I
shrank before him, trembling with mingled rage and disgust; perceiving
which, he scowled the fiercer and thrust a hairy fist into my face.
Threatened thus with bodily harm, I glanced hastily over my shoulder
with some wild notion of ignominious flight, but dignity forbidding, I
stood my ground sick with apprehension and with my sweating hands
tight-clenched.
"Smell it!" quoth the landlord, setting his fist under my nose. "Which
is it t' be,--forty shillin' or this?"
I was groping for my purse when over my shoulder came a large, plump,
red hand that took my scowling aggressor by an ear and tweaked it till
he writhed, and turning, I beheld the large, plump woman who, putting
me aside, interposed her comfortable bulk before me.
"Oh, Sammy," sighed she reproachfully. "You been a-drinkin'
again--shame on ye to go a-frightin' an' a-scarin' this poor child. Go
an' put your wicked 'ead under the pump this instant, you bad boy. As
for you, my pore lamb, never 'eed 'im; 'e bean't so bad when 'e's
sober. Come your ways along o' me, dearie." And folding me within one
robust arm she brought me into that room that was half bar and half
kitchen.
"There!" she exclaimed, leading me to the great settle beside the
fire.
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