George gave him money, and having wished him farewell, watched him striding steadily up the long hill towards Exeter with great satisfaction; then he went back to the public-house, and sat drinking an hour or more.

At last he got out his horse to ride homeward.
The crowd about the public-house door was as thick as ever, and the disturbance greater.

Some of the women were trying to get their drunken husbands home, one man had fallen down dead-drunk beside the door in the mud, and his wife was sitting patiently beside him.

Several girls were standing wearily about the door, dressed in their best, each with a carefully folded white pocket-handkerchief in her hand for show, and not for use, waiting for their sweethearts to come forth when it should suit them; while inside the tap all was a wild confusion of talk, quarrelling, oaths, and smoke enough to sicken a scavenger.
These things are changed now, or are changing, year by year.

Now we have our rural policeman keeping some sort of order, and some show of decency.