from an unacknowledged flicker of envy that the old men frowned upon their honest coarseness, for occasionally one of them, forgetting his attitude of rebuke, would let out a cackle of enjoyment and appreciation, much to his own dismay, and much to the amusement of the youths, who would cry, “Hey, gaffer, don’t you wish you’d be with us? Don’t you, you old dog?” But until this lusty return filled the tap-room with its uproar, the cats and the ancients of the village were left undisturbed. Both in their several ways made the most of their opportunity, the cats to sleep, since little boys who threw stones had gone with the party, hangers-on and peeping-Toms of the day, and the ancients to utter their sage words, to echo approval of one another, and to bury their faces deep in the pewter mugs, from which they emerged with beards dripping foam. A suck of the lips, a wipe with the back of the hand, a long “A-ah,” of contentment, and the mumble of anecdote flowed again upon its course. Sitting there in the sun was favourable to such occupations. Since the strenuousness of life’s work was over,--the early winter rising, the trudges after a lost ewe across snow-swept Downs, the unearthing of mangolds from the frosted ridge, the hours of scything swathe by swathe under burning midday,--what could remain better to do than to sit upon a bench in the sun, with companions who in colour and outlook were the very spit of oneself, to grumble against new-fangled notions, and to wet one’s gizzard with a long pull of ale, which, at all events, however ignominious to admit it, had not deteriorated in quality since one’s youth?