By this time he had slipped down from his seat, and was walking toward the throng. Now that he was upon his feet, he showed himself to be more than common tall, spare and loose jointed. His face was lean and swarthy, his eyes black and restless; his well-cut lips even now wore the same smile as when he mischievously misnamed his driver. Though he wore the usual dress of the Englishman of his day--frock, knee breeches and buckle shoes, none of them in their first youth--there was a something outlandish about him, in the bright yellow of his neckcloth and the red feather stuck at a jaunty angle into the ribbon of his hat; and Tummus, as he looked curiously after his strange passenger, shook his head and bit the straw in his mouth, and muttered: "Ay, it binna on'y the nose, 't binna on'y the nose, with his Jehus an' such." Meanwhile the man strode rapidly along, reached the fringe of the crowd, and appeared to make his way through its mass without difficulty, perhaps by reason of his commanding height, possibly by the aforesaid quaintness of his aspect, and the smile which forbade any one to regard him as an aggressor. He went steadily on until he came opposite to the Talbot Inn. At that moment a stillness fell upon the crowd; every voice was hushed; every head was craned towards the open windows of the inn's assembly room. Gazing with the rest, the stranger saw a long table glittering under the soft radiance of many candles and surrounded by a numerous company--fat and thin, old and young, red-faced and pale, gentle and simple. At the end farthest from the street one figure stood erect--a short, round, rubicund little man, wearing a gown of rusty black, one thumb stuck into his vest, and a rosy benignity in the glance with which he scanned the table. He threw back his head, cleared his tight throat sonorously, and began, in tones perhaps best described as treacly, to address the seated company, with an intention also towards the larger audience without. "Now, neebors all, we be trim and cozy in our insides, and 'tis time fur me to say summat. I be proud, that I be, as it falls to me, bein' bailiff o' this town, to axe ya all to drink the good health of our honored townsman an guest. I ha' lived hereabout, boy an' man, fur a matter o' fifty year, an' if so be I lived fifty more I couldna be a prouder man than I bin this night. Boy an' man, says I? Ay, I knowed our guest when he were no more'n table high. Well I mind him, that I do, comin' by this very street to school; ay, an' he minds me too, I warrant.