"
"To be sure, stranger," said the shepherd. "And, faith, you've
been lucky in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling
for a glad cause--though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that
glad cause to happen more than once a year."
"Nor less," spoke up a woman; "for 'tis best to get your family
over and done with as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier
out of the fag o't."
"And what may be this glad cause?" asked the stranger.
"A birth and christening," said the shepherd.
The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too
many or too few of such episodes, and, being invited by a gesture
to a pull at the mug, he readily acquiesced. His manner, which
before entering had been so dubious, was now altogether that of a
careless and candid man.
"Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb--hey?" said the engaged
man of fifty.
"Late it is, master, as you say. I'll take a seat in the chimney-corner
if you have nothing to urge against it, ma'am, for I am a little
moist on the side that was next the rain."
Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited
comer, who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched
out his legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite
at home.
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