On the day in question it was painfully overcrowded, and such was the hubbub of loud talk, laughter, singing, roaring, clattering of pewter pots, and thumping of tables, that it was almost impossible to hear or understand anything in the shape of conversation.

To this, however, there was one exception.

A small closet simply large enough to hold a table, and two short forms, opened from a room above stairs looking into the stable yard.

In this there was a good fire, at which sat two men, being, with a bed and small table, nearly as many as it was capable of holding with ease.
One of these was a stout, broad-shouldered person, a good deal knock-kneed, remarkably sallow in the complexion, with brows black and beetling.

He squinted, too, with one eye, and what between this circumstance, a remarkably sharp but hooked nose, and the lowering brows aforesaid, there was altogether about him a singular expression of acuteness and malignity.