He had had rather a good day at market, he condescended to tell his wife during the progress of the meal; prices were rising, his old hay was selling at a rate which promised well for the new crops, turnips were in brisk demand, mangold enquired for--altogether Mr.Whitelaw confessed himself very well satisfied with the aspect of affairs.
After tea he spent his evening luxuriantly, sitting close to the fire, with his slippered feet upon the fender, and drinking hot rum-and-water as a preventive of impending, or cure of incipient, cold.

The rum-and-water being a novelty, something out of the usual order of his drink, appeared to have an enlivening effect upon him.

He talked more than usual, and even proposed a game at cribbage with Mrs.Tadman; a condescension which moved that matron to tears, reminding her, she said, of old times, when they had been so comfortable together, before he had taken to spend his evenings at the Grange.
"Not that I mean any unkindness to you, Ellen," the doleful Tadman added apologetically, "for you've been a good friend to me, and if there's one merit I can lay claim to, it's a grateful heart; but of course, when a man marries, he never is the same to his relations as when he was single.
It isn't in human nature that he should be." Here Mrs.Tadman's amiable kinsman requested her to hold her jaw, and to bring the board if she was going to play, or to say as much if she wasn't.

Urged by this gentle reminder, Mrs.Tadman immediately produced a somewhat dingy-looking pack of cards and a queer little old-fashioned cribbage-board.
The game lasted for about an hour or so, at the end of which time the farmer threw himself back in his chair with a yawn, and pronounced that he had had enough of it.

The old eight-day clock in the lobby struck ten soon after this, and the two women rose to retire, leaving Stephen to his night's libations, and not sorry to escape out of the room, which he had converted into a kind of oven or Turkish bath by means of the roaring fire he had insisted upon keeping up all the evening.