When Bartle re-entered, however, there appeared to be a general desire for solo music after the choral.  Nancy declared that Tim the waggoner knew a song and was “allays singing like a lark i’ the stable,” whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, “Come, Tim, lad, let’s hear it.”  Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn’t sing, but this encouraging invitation of the master’s was echoed all round the table.  It was a conversational opportunity:  everybody could say, “Come, Tim,” except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity of unnecessary speech.  At last, Tim’s next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, began to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing rather savage, said, “Let me alooan, will ye?  Else I’ll ma’ ye sing a toon ye wonna like.”  A good-tempered waggoner’s patience has limits, and Tim was not to be urged further.

“Well, then, David, ye’re the lad to sing,” said Ben, willing to show that he was not discomfited by this check.  “Sing ’My loove’s a roos wi’out a thorn.’”

The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to Ben’s invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding.  And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire to hear David’s song.  But in vain.  The lyricism of the evening was in the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that retreat just yet.

Meanwhile the conversation at the head of the table had taken a political turn.  Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally, though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific information.  He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really it was superfluous to know them.

“I’m no reader o’ the paper myself,” he observed to-night, as he filled his pipe, “though I might read it fast enough if I liked, for there’s Miss Lyddy has ’em and ’s done with ’em i’ no time.  But there’s Mills, now, sits i’ the chimney-corner and reads the paper pretty nigh from morning to night, and when he’s got to th’ end on’t he’s more addle-headed than he was at the beginning.  He’s full o’ this peace now, as they talk on; he’s been reading and reading, and thinks he’s got to the bottom on’t.  ‘Why, Lor’ bless you, Mills,’ says I, ’you see no more into this thing nor you can see into the middle of a potato.  I’ll tell you what it is:  you think it’ll be a fine thing for the country.  And I’m not again’ it—­mark my words—­I’m not again’ it.  But it’s my opinion as there’s them at the head o’ this country as are worse enemies to us nor Bony and all the mounseers he’s got at ’s back; for as for the mounseers, you may skewer half-a-dozen of ’em at once as if they war frogs.’”

“Aye, aye,” said Martin Poyser, listening with an air of much intelligence and edification, “they ne’er ate a bit o’ beef i’ their lives.  Mostly sallet, I reckon.”