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marking every door and window, — for who knows when a man shall have need to leave in haste a sailor’s inn? — quoth Martin, ‘‘The old witch is a rare hand to sell a cargo got — thou can’st guess well enough how; and the man who would bring a waggon-load of spirits past the customs on a dark night or would bargain with a Dartmoor shepherd for wool secretly sheared, can lay the matter before her and go his way, knowing she will do his business better than he could do it himself. Yea, a man’s honour and life are safer with her than with any lord in England.”

She showed by a grunt that she had heard him but otherwise paid no attention to what he said. She brought food from a cupboard and laid the table by the fire, and going into a back room, she drew a foaming pitcher of beer.

“No wine?” cried Martin. ‘‘Mother Taylor has no wine? Come, thou old beldame, serve us a stronger tipple.”

She laughed shrilly. "The beer,” said she, ‘‘is from Frome-Selwood.”

“Why, then, I must needs drink and say nought, since it is common report that the gentry choose it, when well aged, rather than the wine of Portugal or France. But my heart was set on good wine or stronger spirits.”

"He who sails on the morning tide must go sober to bed else he may rue his choice. Aye, an’ ’t is rare fine beer.”

Her old bent back fitted into her bent old chair. Her face settled into a myriad wrinkles from which her crooked nose projected like a fish in a bulging net. She was very old and very shrewd, and though there was