s on the present occasion, a
fire helped to light it up; which fire, being chiefly wood, made a
pleasant broad flicker on panel and ceiling, and yet did not make the
room too hot.

On one side sat Doctor Torvey, the doctor of Golden Friars, who knew the
weak point of every man in the town, and what medicine agreed with each
inhabitant--a fat gentleman, with a jolly laugh and an appetite for all
sorts of news, big and little, and who liked a pipe, and made a tumbler
of punch at about this hour, with a bit of lemon-peel in it. Beside him
sat William Peers, a thin old gentleman, who had lived for more than
thirty years in India, and was quiet and benevolent, and the last man in
Golden Friars who wore a pigtail. Old Jack Amerald, an ex-captain of the
navy, with his short stout leg on a chair, and its wooden companion
beside it, sipped his grog, and bawled in the old-fashioned navy way,
and called his friends his 'hearties.' In the middle, opposite the
hearth, sat deaf Tom Hollar, always placid, and smoked his pipe, looking
serenely at the fire. And the landlord of the George and Dragon every
now and then strutted in, and sat down in the high-backed wooden
arm-chair, according to the old-fashioned republican ways of the place,
and took his share in the talk gravely, and was heartily welcome.

"And so Sir Bale is coming home at last," said the Doctor. "Tell us any
more you heard since."

"Nothing," answered Richard Turnbull, the host of the George. "Nothing
to speak of; only 'tis certain sure, and so best; the old house won't
look so dowly now."

"Twyne says the estate owes a good capful o' money by this time, hey?"
said the Doctor, lowering his voice and winking.

"Weel, they do say he's been nout at dow. I don't mind saying so to
_you_, mind, sir, where all's friends together; but he'll get that right
in time."

"More like to save here than where he is," said the Doctor with another
grave nod.

"He does very wisely," said Mr. Peers, having blown out a thin stream of
smoke, "and creditably, to pull-up in time. He's coming here to save a
little, and perhaps he'll marry; and it is the more creditable, if, as
they say, he dislikes the place, and would prefer staying where he is."

And having spoken thus gently, Mr. Peers resumed his pipe cheerfully.

"No, he don't like the place; that is, I'm told he _didn't_," said the
innkeeper.

"He _hates_ it," said the Doctor with another dark nod.

"And no wonder, if all's t