Mrs Mamble joined them for supper. When they had nearly finished another knock came to the door, and Abner went to open it. The new visitor was old Drew, who came in, blinking at the light. ‘Please come in, Mr Drew,’ said Mary, ‘and take a seat.’ He stood for a moment, a bowed and awkward figure. Then he placed on the tablecloth three brown eggs that he had carried in his huge misshapen hand. ‘I bringed you two three eggs, missus,’ he said. ‘They’m getting tarrable scarce these days, and I reckon the chilring might like them.’ ‘That is good of you, Mr Drew,’ Mary cried. ‘Don’t ’ee mention it!’ said the old man. ‘I rackon it won’t be so aisy for ’ee with the maister in trouble. Us all knows what that be, and you’m welcome to them. Iss, us all knows what trouble be, praise God! I had a brother of my own to Lapton Huish as was took for the killing of his wife, though the poor twoad never knew what he done, for a’ suffered from fits, a’ did. Tried and hanged into Exeter he were . . . dear soul too! Iss, I know what trouble manes.’ ‘We all know what trouble means,’ said Mrs Mamble, with a sigh, ‘from the highest to the lowest; but the law be kinder these days than it used to be. My poor dear Robert’s grandfather was a labourin’ man, a quiet, Christian man too, as never raised a hand against any livin’ creature, as Robert told me times, but that weren’t enough to save him from hanging. It was a hard winter, I can’t mind how many years agone, though Robert he told me, and they got him for stealing a sheep—stealing, they says!—as he found dead-stiff in the snow on Clee Hills. As he’d a right to, with the fields like stone and no work and the children crying for bread. But they hanged men for that in Worcester jail in them days. Ay, and when my Robert was a lad, the other boys ‘d put it up against him as his dad had kept sheep by moonlight: that’s what they call hanging in chains, like the gibbet, so they call it, as used to stand in olden times near Clows Top. A quieter man never breathed, nor a better worker. Put a bit more wood on the fire, Mr Fellows, do!’ Abner threw a faggot on the fire and the flames leapt. This friendly flicker, aided, perhaps, by the hypnotic drone of Mrs Mamble’s voice, as soothing as the sound of running water or the midnight rustle of poplars, so encouraged the old labourer that he let himself sink into a chair by the corner of the table. The firelight glinted in his beard, and Abner saw that his full lips were red as those of a young man. He saw also Mary’s face, withdrawn into the gloom. It seemed as if she were dreaming, her mind altogether removed from the voices of her comforters.