dignities of Raveloe, and where he could most speedily make his loss
public. He lifted the latch, and turned into the bright bar or
kitchen on the right hand, where the less lofty customers of the
house were in the habit of assembling, the parlour on the left being
reserved for the more select society in which Squire Cass frequently
enjoyed the double pleasure of conviviality and condescension. But
the parlour was dark to-night, the chief personages who ornamented
its circle being all at Mrs. Osgood's birthday dance, as Godfrey
Cass was. And in consequence of this, the party on the
high-screened seats in the kitchen was more numerous than usual;
several personages, who would otherwise have been admitted into the
parlour and enlarged the opportunity of hectoring and condescension
for their betters, being content this evening to vary their
enjoyment by taking their spirits-and-water where they could
themselves hector and condescend in company that called for beer.



CHAPTER VI

The conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation when Silas
approached the door of the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and
intermittent when the company first assembled. The pipes began to
be puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more
important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire,
staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man
who winked; while the beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets
and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids down and rubbed their hands
across their mouths, as if their draughts of beer were a funereal
duty attended with embarrassing sadness. At last Mr. Snell, the