It was a miserable meal for Bull; he had already eaten, and he could not find a way of refusing the invitation of the proprietor to sit down again.

Seated at the end of the long table he looked miserably up and down it.

Nobody had a look for him except one of contempt.

The sheriff, it seemed, had spread a story around about his lack of spirit, and if Bull remained long in the village, he would be treated with little more respect than he had been in the house of his uncle.

Even now they held him in contempt.