iskers hid his chin, which perhaps in its shape indicated
a character too easy and yielding. His shoulders were broad; his
appearance one of great strength. But his mouth had a sensual look.
Absalom pushed in and out by Madge.

"What didst thee have to eat?" asked a crony of his afterwards.

"Aw," said Absalom, fetching a sigh at the remembrance of the good
things. "Fust I had a plate of rus beef, then a plate of boiled beef;
then I had one of boiled mutton, and next one of roast mutton; last,
bacon. I found I couldn't git on at all wi' th' pudding, but when the
cheese and th' salad came, didn't I pitch into that!"

Absalom's love did not spoil his appetite.

Soon as the dishes were removed, pipes were brought out and tankards
sent on their rounds. By this time poor old Tim's weak brains were
muddled, and he was discovered leaning back against the wall and
mumbling out the tag-end of an old song:--

"On' Humphry wi' his flail,
But Kitty she wur the charming ma-aid
To carry th' milking pa-ail!"

This set them on singing, and Roaring Billy insisted on bawling out at
the top of his stentorian lungs the doleful ditty of "Lord Bateman and
his Daughters," which ran to thirty verses, and lasted half-an-hour.
Hardly were the last words out of his mouth, when an impatient wight
struck up the "Leathern Bottel," and heartily did they all join in the
chorus, down to where the ballad describes the married man wanting to
beat his wife, and using a glass bottle for the purpose, which broke and
let all the wine about:--

"Whereas it had been the Leathern Bottel,
The stopper been in he might banged away well,"

without danger of creating an unanswerable argument in favour of
leathern bottles.

By this time they were pretty well "boozed." A thick cloud of
tobacco-smoke filled the kitchen. Heads were rolling about from side to
side and arms stretched over the tables among the _debris_ of broken
pipes and in pools of spilt beer and froth. Despite these rude,
unromantic surroundings, Absalom and Madge were leaning close against
each other, hand-in-hand, almost silent, but looking in each other's
eyes. What account takes passion of pipes or beer, smoke or drunken men,
of snores and hoarse voices? None: they were oblivious of these things.

CHAPTER II.

A month after the "hay home" a gaily dressed party passed through the
fields towards the village church. Absalom and Madge went first