‘Pub? . . . Ay, you’m close on it. Ten minute’ll bring you to the Barley Mow.’ Abner had some difficulty in understanding him, for the language that he spoke was not that of Mawne. He thanked him. Then, after a long scrutiny, the horseman informed him that the nearest workhouses were at Bromsgrove and Kiddy, five miles to the right or left of the inn, said good-bye and kicked his pony into an amble again. By that time the sheep had long since pattered out of sight; but this was an easy country in which hurry had no place. It amused Abner, and did not in the least offend him, to be taken for a tramp. In a few days, but for Alice’s final bounty, he might easily have become one. The labourer had made an estimate of the distance of the pub in accordance with his own leisurely way of progress. In less than half the time that he had predicted Abner found himself in front of an old red-brick inn shadowed by an immense horse-chestnut whose leaves already drooped with heat. As Abner reached the door, a man whom he took to be the landlord was starting to drive off in a yellow dog-cart, probably to some market, for a small pig was netted in the back of the trap. A big, blowsy woman whom he called ‘mother,’ but who appeared to be of his own age and was no doubt his wife, saw him off. ‘Don’t forget Emily’s stays, dad,’ she called. He waved his whip in answer and went bowling down the road into the sun. The woman returned with a sigh that sounded as if it betokened relief, to the wide, semi-circular steps where Abner was standing waiting for her. She had not seen him arrive, and appeared not to be pleased at the prospect. When he began to speak she cut him short with: ‘No, the master never gives anything. We have to make it a rule on this road.’ He had to explain that he wasn’t begging. ‘Can you give us a bit of breakfast, missis,’ he said, ‘I can pay for it.’ He showed her one of his sovereigns. She looked him up and down incredulously, and then said: ‘Come on in and set yourself in the tap. Better leave the dog outside, or my Betsy’ll have his eyes out.’ Her Betsy, a big, black tom-cat, too rashly christened in his first days of innocence, was already arching a back more like that of a geometer caterpillar than a cat. ‘She can’t abear them if she don’t know them,’ said the landlady. ‘Once she knows them she’ll lie in their arms like a child.’ Abner left Tiger whining outside the door, and the landlady, now satisfied that he wasn’t as rough as he looked, was heard shouting orders to Emily in the kitchen. A smell of frizzling bacon came down the passage.