The din of the tap-room was hushed into momentary silence as soon as this notable figure appeared on the threshold.
"Heaven help these thirsty, roystering men!" she exclaimed, as she paused an instant at the door and surveyed the group within—"On my conscience, they are still at it as greedily as if they had just come out of a dry lent! From sunrise till noon, and from noon till night it is all the same—drink, drink, drink. Have ye news of Master Cocklescraft?—I would that the Olive Branch were come and gone, that I might sit under a quiet roof again!—there is nothing but riot and reeling from the time the skipper is expected in the port until he leaves it."
"True enough, jolly queen!" said Ralph Haywood, a young inland planter, taking the hand of the merry landlady as she struggled by him on her way to the bar—"what the devil, in good earnest, has become of Cocklescraft? This is the second day we have waited for him. I half suspect you, mistress, of a trick to gather good fellows about you, by setting up a false report of the Olive Branch."
"Thou art a lying varlet, Ralph," quickly responded the dame: "you yourself came jogging hither with the story that Cocklescraft was seen two days ago, beating off the Rappahannock.—I play a trick on you, truly! You must think I have need of custom, to bring in a troop of swilling bumpkins from the country who would eat and drink out the character of any reputable house in the hundred, without so much as one doit of profit. You have my free leave to tramp it back again to Providence, Ralph Haywood, whenever you have a mind."
"Nay, now you quarrel with an old friend, Mistress Dorothy."
"Take thy hand off my shoulder, Ralph, thou coaxing villain!—Ha, ha, I warrant you get naught but vinegar from me, for your treacle.—But come—thou art a good child, and shalt have of the best in this house:—I would only warn you to call for it mannerly, Master Ralph."
"Our dame is a woman of mettle," said another of the company, as the landlady escaped from the planter and took her station behind the bar.
"What has become of that man Weasel?" she inquired somewhat petulantly. "The man I am sure has been abroad ever since I left the house! He is of no more value than a cracked pot;—he would see me work myself as thin as a broom handle before he would think of turning himself round."
"Garret is now upon the quay," replied one of the customers;—"I saw him but a moment since with Arnold the Ranger."
"With some idle stroller,—you may be sure of that!" interrupted the hostess:—"never at his place, if the whole house should go dry as Cuthbert's spring at midsummer. Call him to me, if you please, Master Shortgrass.—Michael Curtis, that wench Matty Scamper has something to do besides listen to your claverings! Matty, begone to the kitchen; these country cattle will want their suppers presently.—Oh, Willy, Willy o' the Flats!—for the sake of one's ears, in mercy, stop that everlasting twangling of your old crowd!—It would disgrace the patience of any Christian woman in the world to abide in the midst of all this uproar!—Nay then, come forward, old crony—I would not offend thee," she said in a milder tone to the fiddler. "Here is a cup of ale for thee, and Matty will give you your supper to-night. I have danced too often to thy music to deny thee a comfort;—so, drink as you will! but pray you rest your elbow for a while."