n. Public-houses were not obliged to
close at any special time in those days, and the home-coming, especially
on a fair day, was apt to be a terrible affair. It was not till past
one o'clock that shouts, broken bursts of singing, and howls of
quarrelling announced the break-up of the riotous party, and presently
the door bounced open, and with oaths at the darkness, though there was
bright moonlight, Dan stumbled in and staggered upstairs, overturning
the unlucky screen upon Polly as he did so, cursing and swearing at them
all, and ordering his wife to get up and open the door, which he was
past finding. He did not attack Judith, though he almost fell over her
bed, and the two girls lay trembling, not daring to lift off the screen
till the door of the bedroom was shut on them; and then came the only
too well-known sound of their mother scolding and crying, and his
swearing and beating her.

They were only too much used to such disturbance, and were asleep again
before it was over; but Judith could only lie on, shaking with terror--
not personal--but at the awful words she heard, and praying that they
might not be visited on that unhappy household, but that God would
forgive.

It was not till the next day when the house was tolerably quiet, and
Molly, rather fretful and grumbling, had helped Judith down to her place
by the fire, that she ventured the question, "Molly, you have not a bit
more of that pretty wall-paper you gave me for my screen?"

"Did it get broke last night in Dan's drunken tantrums?"

"Not more than I can mend, but little Miss Sophia, she says that the
paper in the Greenhow drawing-room is quite spoilt for want of a piece
to cover up a bit that was put on wrong."

"My patience! And how did Miss Sophia come to know anything about it?"

"She came up to see me, and bring those cutlets that you are warming up
now."

"Bless me! Well, Dan will be vexed," said Molly. "Such mean folk as
they are, a-peeping and a-prying after everything! They knows how to
look after whatever they chooses to say is their own; and the captain,
he made a row before about that there trumpery yard or two of paper that
was the parkisit of them that hung it."

"Miss Sophy says it spoilt the room."

"Sp'ilt it! They've little to vex 'em that is terrified about that!"

"But have you got the bit, Molly?"

"I never had it! Dan kept it in the outhouse. He may have a scrap
left, that he used to make caps for the Christ