CHAPTER SIX
THE conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation when Silas
approached the door of the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and
intermittent when the company first assembled. The pipes began to be
puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important
customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each
other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked; while
the beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks,
kept their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as
if their draughts of beer were a funereal duty attended with
embarrassing sadness. At last Mr Snell, the landlord, a man of a
neutral disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from human
differences as those of beings who were all alike in need of liquor,
broke silence, by saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher:
'Some folks 'ud say that was a fine beast you druv in yesterday,
Bob?'
The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, was not disposed
to answer rashly. He gave a few puffs before he spat and replied, 'And
they wouldn't be fur wrong, John.'
After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set in as severely
as before.
'Was it a red Durham?' said the farrier, taking up the thread of
discourse after the lapse of a few minutes.
The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at
the butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of
answering.
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