Alarmed by these prognostications of a storm, and feeling too much exhausted from his late severe treatment to proceed further on foot, Wood endeavoured to find a tavern where he might warm and otherwise refresh himself.  With this view he struck off into a narrow street on the left, and soon entered a small alehouse, over the door of which hung the sign of the “Welsh Trumpeter.”

“Let me have a glass of brandy,” said he, addressing the host.

“Too late, master,” replied the landlord of the Trumpeter, in a surly tone, for he did not much like the appearance of his customer; “just shut up shop.”

“Zounds!  David Pugh, don’t you know your old friend and countryman?” exclaimed the carpenter.

“Ah!  Owen Wood, is it you?” cried David in astonishment.  “What the devil makes you out so late?  And what has happened to you, man, eh?—­you seem in a queer plight.”

“Give me the brandy, and I’ll tell you,” replied Wood.

“Here, wife—­hostess—­fetch me that bottle from the second shelf in the corner cupboard.—­There, Mr. Wood,” cried David, pouring out a glass of the spirit, and offering it to the carpenter, “that’ll warm the cockles of your heart.  Don’t be afraid, man,—­off with it.  It’s right Nantz.  I keep it for my own drinking,” he added in a lower tone.

Mr. Wood having disposed of the brandy, and pronounced himself much better, hurried close to the fire-side, and informed his friend in a few words of the inhospitable treatment he had experienced from the gentlemen of the Mint; whereupon Mr. Pugh, who, as well as the carpenter, was a descendant of Cadwallader, waxed extremely wrath; gave utterance to a number of fierce-sounding imprecations in the Welsh tongue; and was just beginning to express the greatest anxiety to catch some of the rascals at the Trumpeter, when Mr. Wood cut him short by stating his intention of crossing the river as soon as possible in order to avoid the storm.

“A storm!” exclaimed the landlord.  “Gadzooks!  I thought something was coming on; for when I looked at the weather-glass an hour ago, it had sunk lower than I ever remember it.”

“We shall have a durty night on it, to a sartinty, landlord,” observed an old one-eyed sailor, who sat smoking his pipe by the fire-side.  “The glass never sinks in that way, d’ye see, without a hurricane follerin’, I’ve knowed it often do so in the West Injees.  Moreover, a souple o’ porpusses came up with the tide this mornin’, and ha’ bin flounderin’ about i’ the Thames abuv Lunnun Bridge all day long; and them say-monsters, you know, always proves sure fore runners of a gale.”

“Then the sooner I’m off the better,” cried Wood; “what’s to pay, David?”

“Don’t affront me, Owen, by asking such a question,” returned the landlord; “hadn’t you better stop and finish the bottle?”

“Not a drop more,” replied Wood.  “Enough’s as good as a feast.  Good night!”