'That,' returned the landlord, a little brought down from his dignity
by the stranger's surliness, 'is a Maypole story, and has been any time
these four-and-twenty years. That story is Solomon Daisy's story. It
belongs to the house; and nobody but Solomon Daisy has ever told it
under this roof, or ever shall--that's more.'

The man glanced at the parish-clerk, whose air of consciousness and
importance plainly betokened him to be the person referred to, and,
observing that he had taken his pipe from his lips, after a very long
whiff to keep it alight, and was evidently about to tell his story
without further solicitation, gathered his large coat about him, and
shrinking further back was almost lost in the gloom of the spacious
chimney-corner, except when the flame, struggling from under a great
faggot, whose weight almost crushed it for the time, shot upward with a
strong and sudden glare, and illumining his figure for a moment, seemed
afterwards to cast it into deeper obscurity than before.

By this flickering light, which made the old room, with its heavy
timbers and panelled walls, look as if it were built of polished
ebony--the wind roaring and howling without, now rattling the latch
and creaking the hinges of the stout oaken door, and now driving at
the casement as though it would beat it in--by this light, and under
circumstances so auspicious, Solomon Daisy began his tale:

'It was Mr Reuben Haredale, Mr Geoffrey's elder brother--'

Here he came to a dead stop, and made so long a pause that even John
Willet grew impatient and asked why he did not proceed.

'Cobb,' said Solomon Daisy, dropping his voice and appealing to the