stiny; whilst another might be found in a
circumstance of which she was so far from making a secret, that it was
one of her most frequent topics of discourse.

The calamity in question took the not un-frequent form of a next-door
neighbour. On her right dwelt an eminent tinman with his pretty
daughter, two of the most respectable, kindest, and best-conducted
persons in the town; but on her left was an open bricked archway,
just wide enough to admit a cart, surmounted by a dim and dingy
representation of some horned animal, with "The Old Red Cow" written
in white capitals above, and "James Tyler, licensed to sell beer,
ale, wine, and all sorts of spirituous liquors," below; and down the
aforesaid passage, divided only by a paling from the spacious premises
where her earthenware and coarser kinds ef crockery were deposited, were
the public-house, stables, cowhouses, and pigsties of Mr. James Tyler,
who added to his calling of publican, the several capacities of milkman,
cattle dealer, and pig merchant, so that the place was one constant
scene of dirt and noise and bustle without and within;--this Old
Red Cow, in spite of its unpromising locality, being one of the best
frequented houses in Belford, the constant resort of drovers, drivers,
and cattle dealers, with a market dinner on Wednesdays and Saturdays,
and a club called the Jolly Tailors, every Monday night.

Master James Tyler--popularly called Jem--was the very man to secure and
increase this sort of custom. Of vast stature and extraordinary physical
power, combined with a degree of animal spirits not often found in
combination with such large proportions, he was at once a fit ruler
over his four-footed subjects in the yard, a miscellaneous and most
disorderly collection of cows, horses, pigs, and oxen, to say nothing of
his own five boys, (for Jem was a widower,) each of whom, in striving
to remedy, was apt to enhance the confusion, and an admirable lord of
misrule at the drovers' dinners and tradesmen's suppers over which he
presided. There was a mixture of command and good-humour, of decision
and fun, in the gruff, bluff, weather-beaten countenance, surmounted
with its rough shock of coal-black hair, and in the voice loud as a
stentor, with which he now guided a drove of oxen, and now roared a
catch, that his listeners in either case found irresistible. Jem Tyler
was the very spirit of vulgar jollity, and could, as he boasted, run,
leap, box, wrestle, drink, sin