Reverse of the sad menage at the Castle of Wolf's Crag, a bickering
fire roared up the cooper's chimney. His wife, on the one side, in
her pearlings and pudding-sleeves, put the last finishing touch to
her holiday's apparel, while she contemplated a very handsome and
good-humoured face in a broken mirror, raised upon the "bink" (the
shelves on which the plates are disposed) for her special accommodation.
Her mother, old Luckie Loup-the-Dyke, "a canty carline" as was within
twenty miles of her, according to the unanimous report of the "cummers,"
or gossips, sat by the fire in the full glory of a grogram gown, lammer
beads, and a clean cockernony, whiffing a snug pipe of tobacco, and
superintending the affairs of the kitchen; for--sight more interesting
to the anxious heart and craving entrails of the desponding seneschal
than either buxom dame or canty cummer--there bubbled on the aforesaid
bickering fire a huge pot, or rather cauldron, steaming with beef and
brewis; while before it revolved two spits, turned each by one of the
cooper's apprentices, seated in the opposite corners of the chimney, the
one loaded with a quarter of mutton, while the other was graced with a
fat goose and a brace of wild ducks.
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