"'All right, missus, here's the posh.'
"She asked us out of bravado if we could eat any more. We said, 'Yes, we could do with some Christmas cake.'
"She politely told us that she shouldn't cut the Christmas cake until the next day. 'But you can have some zeedy biscays, if you like.'
"'All right.' And in she brought them, which we also polished off. Afterwards she demanded fourpence for them.
"'All right, missus, the fourpunce charged for baking the pie will pay for the biscuits, so us'll cry quits,' which joke the old woman swallowed with a good laugh."
John Burton proceeds to describe the Christmas merry-making at the inn that night. Jamaica Inn had not then become a temperance hotel. The moormen and farmers came in, the great fire glowed like a furnace. The wind sobbed without, and piped in at the casement—"the souls on the wind," as it was said, the spirits of unbaptized babes wailing at the windowpane, seeing the fire within, and condemned to wander on the cold blast without.
To the red fire, and to the plentiful libations, songs were sung, among others that very favourite ballad of the "Highwayman"—
I went to London both blythe and gay,
My time I squandered in dice and play,
Until my funds they fell full low,
And on the highway I was forced to go.
Then after an account of how he robbed Lord Mansfield and Lady Golding, of Portman Square—
I shut the door, bade all good night,
And rambled to my heart's delight.