Meanwhile, inside the ‘Spotted Deer’ Bessie Costrell was treating her hangers-on.  She had drunk one glass of gin-and-water—­it had made a beauty of her in the judgement of the tap-room, such a kindling had it given to her brown eyes and such a redness to her cheek.  Bessie, in truth, had reached her moment of physical prime.  The marvel was that there were no lovers in addition to the drinking and the extravagance.  But the worst of the village scandalmongers knew of none.  Since this new phase of character in her had developed, she would drink and make merry with any young fellow in the place, but it went no further.  She was bonne camarade with all the world—­no more.  Perhaps at bottom some coolness of temperament protected her; nobody, at any rate, suspected that it had anything to do with Isaac, or that she cared a ha’p’orth for so lugubrious and hypocritical a husband.

She had showered drinks on all her friends, and had, moreover, clattered and screamed herself hoarse, when the church-clock outside slowly struck eight.  She started, changed countenance, and got up to pay at once.

‘Why, there’s another o’ them half-crowns o’ yourn, Bessie,’ said a consumptive-looking girl in a bedraggled hat and feathers, as Mrs. Costrell handed her coin to the landlord.  ’Wheriver do yer get ’em?’

‘If yer don’t ask no questions, I won’t tell yer no lies,’ said Bessie, with quick impudence.  ‘Where did you get them hat and feathers?’

There was a coarse laugh from the company.  The girl in the hat reddened furiously, and she and Bessie—­both of them in a quarrelsome state—­ began to bandy words.

Meanwhile the landlord was showing the coin to his assistant at the bar.

‘Rum, ain’t it?  I niver seed one o’ them pieces in the village afore this winter, an I’ve been ‘ere twenty-two year come April.’

A decent-looking labourer, who did not often visit the ‘Spotted Deer,’ was leaning over the bar and caught the words.

’Well then, I ‘ave,’ he said, promptly.  ’I mind well as when I were a lad, sixteen year ago, my fayther borrered a bit o’ money off John Bolderfield, to buy a cow with—­an there was ’arf of it in them ‘arf-crowns.’

Those standing near overheard.  Bessie and the girl stopped quarrelling.  The landlord, startled, cast a sly eye in Bessie’s direction.  She came up to the bar.

‘What’s that yer sayin?’ she demanded.

The man repeated his remark.

‘Well, I dessay there was,’ said Bessie—­’I dessay there was.  I s’pose there’s plenty of ’em.  Where do I get ’em?—­why I get ’em at Bedford, of course, when I goes for my money.’

She looked round defiantly.  No one said anything; but everybody instinctively suspected a lie.  The sudden silence was striking.

‘Well, give me my change, will yer?’ she said, impatiently to the landlord.  ‘I can’t stan here all night.’

He gave it to her, and she went out showering reckless good-nights, to which there was little response.  The door had no sooner closed upon her than every one in the taproom pressed round the bar in a close gathering of heads and tongues.