It was exclusively a men’s gathering. Their wives never accompanied them; though sometimes a woman who had got her family off hand, and so had a few halfpence to spend on herself, would knock at the back door with a bottle or jug and perhaps linger a little, herself unseen, to listen to what was going on within. Children also knocked at the back door to buy candles or treacle or cheese, for the innkeeper ran a small shop at the back of his premises, and the children, too, liked to hear what was going on. Indoors, the innkeeper’s children would steal out of bed and sit on the stairs in their nightgowns. The stairs went up from the taproom, with only the back of the settle between, and it gave the men a bit of a shock one night when what looked at first sight like a big white bird came flopping down among them. It was little Florrie, who had gone to sleep on the stairs and fallen. They nursed her on their knees, held her feet to the fire, and soon dried her tears, for she was not hurt, only frightened.

The children heard no bad language beyond an occasional “b——” or “d——,” for their mother was greatly respected and the merest hint of anything stronger was hushed by nudges and whispers of, “Don’t forget Landlady,” or “Mind! ‘Ooman present.” Nor were the smutty songs and stories of the fields ever repeated there; they were kept for their own time and place.

Politics was a favourite topic, for, under the recently extended franchise, every householder was a voter, and they took their new responsibility seriously. A mild Liberalism prevailed, a Liberalism that would be regarded as hide-bound Toryism now, but was daring enough in those days. One man who had been to work in Northampton proclaimed himself a Radical; but he was cancelled out by the landlord, who called himself a “true blue”. With the collaboration of this Left and Right, questions of the moment were thrashed out and settled to the satisfaction of the majority.

“Three Acres and a Cow,” “The Secret Ballot,” “The Parnell Commission and Crime,” “Disestablishment of the Church,” were catchwords that flew about freely. Sometimes a speech by Gladstone, or some other leader would be read aloud from a newspaper and punctuated by the fervent “Hear! Hear” of the company. Or Sam, the man with advanced opinions, would relate with reverent pride the story of his meeting and shaking hands with Joseph Arch, the farm-worker’s champion. “Joseph Arch!” he would cry. “Joseph Arch is the man for the farm labourer!” and knock on the table and wave aloft his pewter mug, very carefully, for every drop was precious.