But Williams, in spite of his ready kindness in driving them back to Wolfpits with his tired horse, had chuckled to find in this incident a chance of annoying his old enemy, Mrs Malpas of the Buffalo. In all things he was a gross and childish man, whose plan of life embraced only two classes of acquaintance, enemies and friends, and he spent the greater part of his time in scheming to annoy the former and overwhelm the latter with the most naïve of kindnesses. As for Mrs Malpas, not even pity for her in the affair of George could induce him to forget his quarrel over the hogshead of cider. He knew very well that her weak spot was her own claim to an unassailable chapel morality, and having already enjoyed the pleasure of scoring her off by sending her only son on his first stage to Shrewsbury as a felon, he could not now resist the satisfaction of telling her that her daughter-in-law had been away with the lodger while George was in Salop jail. Next week, at Ludlow market, he entertained the farmers’ ordinary with the story, and in the evening, having done a good day’s business and drunk enough to make him fear no man, he drove home, chuckling to himself, by way of Chapel Green, pulling up at the Buffalo for a final drink. It was the first time that he had visited the inn since that unfortunate quarrel. The cloggers who had gone away in the previous winter had found lodgings in a village farther westward on their return in the spring, and the Buffalo had never emerged from the silence in which they had left it. Mrs Malpas seemed surprised that any one should call so late at night. The bar was empty, and she had to light the swinging oil lamp for him, standing on a chair. Williams himself found a match and lit it for her out of sheer fuddled kindness. It struck her that he was too kind by half. He drank his whisky standing in the middle of the taproom, smacking it on his tongue. ‘You didn’t go to Bron Fair, ma’am?’ he said. ‘No,’ Mrs Malpas replied. ‘Nor have I these many years.’ ‘There’s pretty things to be seen there,’ said Williams, with a grin. She made no reply, and he advanced obliquely from another angle. ‘How’s your son getting on?’ ‘But for the shame that we all bear, Mr Williams, he’s out of harm’s way.’ ‘Yes, it’s a good Christian prison, I’m told,’ said he, laughing. ‘Chaplains and all! How’s his wife, eh?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Malpas shortly. ‘And I don’t want to know.’ ‘Smart looking young woman!’ Williams leered. ‘I know nothing about her, Mr Williams.’ ‘Then I’ll tell you something, ma’am. She’s been off on the spree, childer an’ all, to Bron Fair. Slept the night at the Harley Arms, Redlake, with that lodger chap. What do you think of that?’ Mrs Malpas blenched. ‘That’s your story, Mr Williams, but there’s no need to believe you, thanks be!’ ‘But seeing’s believing, ma’am,’ said Williams heavily. ‘And I seen. What is it I owe you now?’