smoke. My pipe would not draw, and I smashed it in trying to make it.

The tall oak clock tick-tocked on in the house-place, and Jane sang on at
her churning in the dairy across the yard. I sat gazing at the fire, where
I could see nothing but Jack Dobson in his martial grandeur, and I hated
him for his greatness, and despised myself for my pettiness. All the same
it was unendurable, and it was a relief to see Joe Braggs tiptoeing
carefully across the yard dairywards. The rascal should have been patching
a gap in the hedge of Ten-acres, and here he was, foraging for a jug of
ale. He could wheedle Jane as easily as he could snare a rabbit, but I
would scarify him out of his five senses, the hulk.

The singing stopped, and then the churning, and five minutes later I
crept up to the kitchen door, which was ajar. There was my lord Joe, a jug
of ale in hand, his free arm round Jane's neck. How endurable these two
found life at the Hanyards! I caught a fragment of their gossip.

"Be there such things as rale quanes, Jin?"

"Of course," she replied. "There's pictures of 'em in one of Master
Noll's books. Crowns on their yeds, too."

"There's one on 'em down 'tour house, Jin, but she ain't got no crown.
But bless thee, wench, I'd sooner kiss thee than look at fifty quanes."

Jane yelped as I murdered an incipient kiss by knocking the jug out of
his hand across the kitchen, but in kicking him out of doors I tripped
over a bucket of water, and about half a score fine dace flopped miserably
on the wet floor.