could be seen
dangling etiolated arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of
the tiles and were groping in vain for some support, their leaves being
dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight; others were pushing in with
such force at the eaves as to lift from their supports the shelves that
were fixed there.

Besides the itinerant journey-workers there were also present John
Upjohn, engaged in the hollow-turnery trade, who lived hard by; old
Timothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs, top and bottom sawyers, at work
in Mr. Melbury's pit outside; Farmer Bawtree, who kept the cider-house,
and Robert Creedle, an old man who worked for Winterborne, and stood
warming his hands; these latter being enticed in by the ruddy blaze,
though they had no particular business there. None of them call for
any remark except, perhaps, Creedle. To have completely described him
it would have been necessary to write a military memoir, for he wore
under his smock-frock a cast-off soldier's jacket that had seen hot
service, its collar showing just above the flap of the frock; also a
hunting memoir, to include the top-boots that he had picked up by
chance; also chronicles of voyaging and shipwreck, for his pocket-knife
had been given him by a weather-beaten sailor. But Creedle carried
about with him on his uneventful rounds these silent testimonies of
war, sport, and adventure, and thought nothing of their associations or
their stories.

Copse-work, as it was called, being an occupation which the secondary
intelligence of the hands and arms could carry on without requiring the
sovereign attention of the head, the minds of its professors wandered
considerably from the objects before them; hence the tales, chronicles,
and ramifications of family history which were recounted here were of a
very exhaustive kind, and sometimes so interminable as to defy
description.

Winterborne, seeing that Melbury had not arrived, stepped back again
outside the door; and the conversation interrupted by his momentary
presence flowed anew, reaching his ears as an accompaniment to the
regular dripping of the fog from the plantation boughs around.

The topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent one--the
personal character of Mrs. Charmond, the owner of the surrounding woods
and groves.

"My brother-in-law told me, and I have no reason to doubt it," said
Creedle, "that she'd sit down to her dinner with a frock hardly higher
than her elbows. 'O