The wine was very dark and strong and the smell filled the low room and came out through the door.

Half-a-dozen men sat at the tables, mostly eating ship biscuit of their own and goat's-milk cheese which they bought with their wine.

They were rough-looking fellows, generally in checked flannel shirts, and home-spun trousers.
But they all wore boots or shoes, which are in the south a distinctive sign of a certain degree of prosperity.

Most of them had black beards and smart woollen caps.

They were men who got their living principally by the sea in one way or another, but none of them looked thorough seamen.