You may find the inn to this day on the western side of the Hauen as you
go to the Old Quay. A pair of fish-scales faces the entrance, and the
jolly pilchards themselves hang over your head, on a signboard that
creaks mightily when the wind blows from the south.

The signboard was creaking that night, and a thick drizzle drove in
gusts past the door. Behind the red blinds within, the landlady, Prudy
Polwarne, stood with her back to the open hearth. Her hands rested on
her hips, and the firelight, that covered all the opposite wall and most
of the ceiling with her shadow, beat out between her thick ankles in the
shape of a fan. She was a widow, with a huge, pale face and a figure
nearly as broad as it was long; and no man thwarted her. Weaknesses she
had none, except an inability to darn her stockings. That the holes at
her heels might not be seen, she had a trick of pulling her stockings
down under her feet, an inch or two at a time, as they wore out; and
when the tops no longer reached to her knee, she gartered--so gossip
said--half-way down the leg.

Around her, in as much of the warmth as she spared, sat Old Zeb, Uncle
Issy, Jim Lewarne, his brother, and six or seven other notables of the
two parishes. They were listening just now, and though the mug of
eggy-hot passed from hand to hand as steadily as usual, a certain
restrained excitement might have been guessed from the volumes of smoke
ascending from their clay pipes.

"A man must feel it, boys," the hostess said, "wi' a rale four-poster
hung wi' yaller on purpose to suit his wife's complexion, an' then to
have no wife arter all."

"Ay," assented Old Zeb, who puffed in the corner of a settle on her