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‘Poor man! Then, in spite o’ seeming, you be worse off than we?’ replied the shepherd’s wife.

”Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. ‘Tis the nature of my trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up and off, or I shan’t get a lodging in the town.’ However, the speaker did not move, and directly added, ‘There’s time for one more draught of friendship before I go; and I’d perform it at once if the mug were not dry.’

‘Here’s a mug o’ small,’ said Mrs. Fennel. ‘Small, we call it, though to be sure ’tis only the first wash o’ the combs.’

‘No,’ said the stranger disdainfully. ‘I won’t spoil your first kindness by partaking o’ your second.’

‘Certainly not,’ broke in Fennel. ‘We don’t increase and multiply every day, and I’ll fill the mug again.’ He went away to the dark place under the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him.

‘Why should you do this?’ she said reproachfully, as soon as they were alone. ‘He’s emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and now he’s not contented wi’ the small, but must needs call for more o’ the strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I don’t like the look o’ the man at all.’

‘But he’s in the house, my honey; and ’tis a wet night, and a christening. Daze it, what’s a cup of mead more or less? There’ll be plenty more next bee-burning.’

‘Very well–this time, then,’ she answered, looking wistfully at the barrel. ‘But what is the man’s calling, and where is he one of; that he should come in and join us like this?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll ask him again.’

The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel. She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a discreet distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger’s occupation.

The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney- corner, with sudden demonstrativeness, said, ‘Anybody may know my trade–I’m a wheelwright.’

‘A very good trade for these parts,’ said the shepherd.

‘And anybody may know mine–if they’ve the sense to find it out,’ said the stranger in cinder-gray.

‘You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,’ observed the hedge-carpenter, looking at his own hands. ‘My fingers be as full of thorns as an old pin-cushion is of pins.’

The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the table took up the hedge-carpenter’s remark, and added smartly, ‘True; but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers.’

No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, the shepherd’s wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles presented themselves as at the former time–one had no voice, another had forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing himself. Thrusting one thumb into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks above the mantelpiece, began:-

‘O my trade it is the rarest one,

My trade is a sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, And waft ’em to a far countree!’

The room was silent when he had finished the verse–with one exception, that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer’s word, ‘Chorus! ‘joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish –

‘And waft ’em to a far countree!’

Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some suspicion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely singing an old song from recollection, or was composing one there and then for the occasion. All were as perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests at Belshazzar’s Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who quietly said, ‘Second verse, stranger,’ and smoked on.