Sam muttered something, and pulled his ragged hat forward as he shambled off into some back settlements of the public-house, while the ostler went on-- "'Tis just their game, sir! None of 'em would hurt poor Sam! They'd treat him the next minute, sir. All in sport." "Strange sport," said the captain, "to teach a poor helpless lad, who ought to be as innocent as a babe, that abominable blasphemy." "He don't mean nought, sir! All's one to he!" "All the worse in those who do know better, I tell you; and you may tell your master that, if this goes on, I shall certainly speak to the magistrates." There was no need to tell the landlord, Mr Oldfellow. The captain was plainly enough to be heard through the window of the bar. The drovers had no notion that their amusement was sinful, for "it didn't hurt no one," and, in fact, "getting a rise" out of Softy Sam was one of the great attractions of the "Fox and Hounds," so that Mr Oldfellow was of the same mind as Dan Hewlett, who declared that "they Gobblealls was plaguey toads of Methodys, and wasn't to think to bully them about like his soldiers." They had another drink all round to recover from their fright, when they treated Softy Sam, but took care not to excite him to be noisy, while the captain might be within earshot. The two ladies had meanwhile taken refuge in what proved to be no other than Mrs Daniel Hewlett's house, a better one, and less scantily provided with furniture, than the widow Mole's, but much less clean and neat. The door stood open, and there was a tub full of soap-suds within. The captain gave a low whistle to intimate his presence, and stood at the entrance. Unwashed dinner things were on a round table, a dresser in confusion against the wall, on another _Moore's Almanack_ for some years past, full of frightful catastrophes, mixed with little, French, highly-coloured pictures of the Blessed Virgin. His wife and her sister were seated, the one on a whole straw chair, the other on a rickety one, conversing with a very neat, pale, and pleasant-looking invalid young woman, evidently little able to rise from her wooden armchair. Molly Hewlett, in a coarse apron, and a cap far back amid the rusty black tangles of her hair, her arms just out of the wash-tub, was in the midst of a voluble discourse, into which the ladies would not break. "You see, ma'am, she was in a right good situation, but she was always unlucky, and she had the misfortune to fall down the attic stairs with the baby in her arms." "The baby was not hurt," put in the invalid.