as the opposite. They were safe in port when they saw its friendly gleam.
When the two strangers pushed open the door and entered the low-ceilinged assembly room, Tom Pitts saw at once that his projected forlorn hope was unnecessary. Old Stover sat in his usual corner, with his long-stemmed churchwarden clay pipe in his hand, and a tankard of ale on the little shelf at his elbow. Most of those present had already greeted Tom Pitts at the landing of the boats, but again they welcomed him with a kind of subdued hilarity. It was palpable that a mitigated gloom hung over the conference, and the evening was yet too young for sufficient malt to have been consumed to lift the pall. Old Stover, usually the voluble braggart of the evening session, reclined mute in his wooden arm-chair. At the middle of the long table sat the wizened, comically antique figure of the village school-master, with writing materials before him, and the one mug of ale, which he never exceeded, beside them. He looked as if he had stepped out of a page of Sir Walter Scott, and at the moment of the entry his wrinkled face showed a state of suspended perplexity.
"Well, lads," cried Tom Pitts, as the barman shoved across the counter of the tap-room his flagon of ale, "here's to you all! Is this a Quakers' meeting? What's gone wrong?"
"Owd Ned," said one, "has chucked oop t'
