The sharp rasp of the woman’s voice brought him round as though she had clouted him on the ear. “What are you thinking of, man?” The red-lidded eyes behind the eyelet-holes in the linen looked capable of expressing nothing but fleshly things. “Supper,” he said, curtly. “Well, you’ll wait for it. Quick, you fool, the liquor’s running over.” He turned and put a hand to the spigot, muttering as a rivulet of good ale curled across the floor. “All your tongue, as usual.” “It’s always my tongue, Sim, and never your lumpishness. Wipe that slop up; I’m not going to soil my shoes in it.” He obeyed her, and then sat himself on the three-legged stool before the fire, taking the jug with him, and standing it on the hearth. “There’s comfort in the stuff,” he said, sullenly. The woman gave a sharp laugh. “Courage, you mean, you six feet and a half of fat and folly! You would run away from it all but for me.” “Run!” “Yes, you.” “You want a week of the branks, my dear. Give me my money and my liquor, and I’m the bully for any man.” “Oh, you’re a fine fat falcon—you! Keep a little courage in the cask, Sim, till the business comes. Three days’ grace and no countermand. What’s it to be—a mattress, or a fathom of rope, or a soft scarf? What are you looking so sulky about?” For the man had bunched himself over the fire, and was rocking backward and forward on two legs of the stool. “Let it alone, you fool,” he said; “it don’t do a man good to think of such things.” She looked up mockingly, and threw a half-rotten apple at him. “Oh, you soft head!—you piece of pulp! You’re no better than a great girl—you, who pulled Adam Naylor’s windpipe out and broke in that Frenchman’s chest. You, to make such a blubber over this!” “Who’s afraid?” he asked, savagely. “My sweet conscience! Oh, dear, good saints! I’m a poor sinner, a poor snivelling sinner—” “Nance, shut your trap!” And he opened his chest and roared at her with sudden fury. She took it with a laugh. “Better, Sim, better. Put a little temper into it. I’ll give you a pint of hollands when the night comes, and smack you across the face with a firebrand to make you mad.” And she filled her apron with the apple-peelings, and came and tossed them into the fire. A west wind blew fitfully about the tower of Thorn. The ivy rustled, leaf tapping against leaf; and the clouds passed slowly across the stars. An owl was beating up and down the edge of a neighboring wood, hooting as he went, now strangely near, now faint in the distance. From the court-yard came the dull “burr” of the dog’s chain as he fidgeted in his kennel.