Cross-pall_ or no _cross-pall,_ it
looked for all the world like a black 'Y', with a broad arm ending in
each of the top corners of the shield, and the tail coming down into the
bottom. You might see that cognizance carved on the manor, and on the
stonework and woodwork of the church, and on a score of houses in the
village, and it hung on the signboard over the door of the inn. Everyone
knew the Mohune 'Y' for miles around, and a former landlord having called
the inn the Why Not? in jest, the name had stuck to it ever since.
More than once on winter evenings, when men were drinking in the Why
Not?, I had stood outside, and listened to them singing 'Ducky-stones',
or 'Kegs bobbing One, Two, Three', or some of the other tunes that
sailors sing in the west. Such songs had neither beginning nor ending,
and very little sense to catch hold of in the middle. One man would crone
the air, and the others would crone a solemn chorus, but there was little
hard drinking, for Elzevir Block never got drunk himself, and did not
like his guests to get drunk either. On singing nights the room grew hot,
and the steam stood so thick on the glass inside that one could not see
in; but at other times, when there was no company, I have peeped through
the red curtains and watched Elzevir Block and Ratsey playing backgammon
at the trestle-table by the fire.
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