h a man as father for two things--cleaving up old
dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass his life
between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door and opened it.

"Father!"

"Ay!" rang thinly from round the corner.

"Here's the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!"

A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past,
now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and
made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family
appeared.

CHAPTER III: THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE

William Dewy--otherwise grandfather William--was now about seventy; yet
an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his
face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe
ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was protected
from the weather by lying above the line of his hat-brim, seemed to
belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. His was a
humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent melancholy; and
he had a firm religious faith. But to his neighbours he had no character
in particular. If they saw him pass by their windows when they had been
bottling off old mead, or when they had just been called long-headed men
who might do anything in the world if they chose, they thought concerning
him, "Ah, there's that good-hearted man--open as a child!" If they saw
him just after losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting
fall a piece of crockery, they thought, "There's that poor weak-minded
man Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If he
passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely
thought him old William Dewy.

"Ah, so's--here you be!--Ah, Michael and Joseph and John--and you too,
Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood fire
directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in cleaving
'em." As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which fell in the
chimney-corner with a rumble, and looked at them with something of the
admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living people who had been very
obstinate in holding their own. "Come in, grandfather James."

Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a
visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people considered
him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward
from behind grandfather William,