It was a wearisome walk to the farm-house; but as soon as she had reached the porch, and lifting up her quavering voice, began, ‘God rest you, merry gentlefolk, Let nothing you dismay,’ the door was flung open quickly, and she was called in, and set before such a breakfast as she had not seen for years. Poor old Mrs. Duffy’s heart was very full, and before she could swallow a morsel, she said in a slow and tremulous voice: ‘I can’t think what’s come to folks this year. It’s like them blessed Christmases we shall have when everybody’s friends, when the lion is friends with the lamb, and the cockatrices with the babies. Here’s Dr. Layard’s daughter asked me to tea, and I’ve got a Christmas joint, and now there’s such a breakfast as I never see before, and me done nothing for it. I can’t think what’s come to folks; but it’s a blessed Christmas, it is.’ ‘You’ll sing your carol for us better after breakfast,’ said the farmer’s wife, ‘and my husband’s father has given me a shilling for you.’ Mrs. Duffy shed a few very blissful tears, and after breakfast sang two or three carols, with as much zeal and energy as though they were sure to bring down many blessings on the hospitable roof. It was a little after nine o’clock when she left the house; but there was the Christmas dinner to cook, and it was necessary to go home early for that. She bade them good-by, and took her way joyously across the fields lying in winter-fallow, through which there was a nearer way back to the town. Mrs. Duffy was just turning out of the fields into the high road, when a man suddenly started up from behind the hedge, and laid his hand roughly on her shoulder. He was a big, heavy-looking fellow, in the ordinary dress of a labourer; and he seemed, even at that early hour, to be half stupefied with drink. She looked into his coarse face, with a feeling of terror which was new to her. ‘I want a shilling off you,’ he said, fiercely. ‘A shilling!’ she cried, ‘where should a poor woman like me have a shilling from?’ ‘Haven’t you got a shilling?’ he demanded. Poor Mrs. Duffy had prided herself all her life on never having told a lie. She looked up and down the road, but there was not a creature in sight; and she glanced again hopelessly into the man’s savage and stupid face. What should she do? To part with the shilling just given to her would be a very great loss; and she knew it would only be spent in the nearest public-house. Should she be doing very wrong to deny having one? It was the first time for years that she had had a whole silver shilling about her; and any moment during that time she could have replied ‘No’ boldly and truthfully. Might she not say ‘No’ just this once? ‘Haven’t you got a shilling?’ he repeated, shaking her shoulder roughly. ‘Well,’ she said, feebly, ‘I haven’t had a shilling ever so long; but I have got one now. I’m a very poor old woman, my good young man. If I’d got a penny, I’d give it you, and welcome.’