Above stairs, is a
rough brick gallery to sit in, with very little windows with very
small patches of knotty glass in them, and all the doors that open
from it (a dozen or two) off their hinges, and a bare board on
tressels for a table, at which thirty people might dine easily, and
a fireplace large enough in itself for a breakfast-parlour, where,
as the faggots blaze and crackle, they illuminate the ugliest and
grimmest of faces, drawn in charcoal on the whitewashed chimney-
sides by previous travellers. There is a flaring country lamp on
the table; and, hovering about it, scratching her thick black hair
continually, a yellow dwarf of a woman, who stands on tiptoe to
arrange the hatchet knives, and takes a flying leap to look into
the water-jug. The beds in the adjoining rooms are of the
liveliest kind. There is not a solitary scrap of looking-glass in
the house, and the washing apparatus is identical with the cooking
utensils. But the yellow dwarf sets on the table a good flask of
excellent wine, holding a quart at least; and produces, among half-
a-dozen other dishes, two-thirds of a roasted kid, smoking hot.
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