The Ole Ploughman was ancient, a public house since the days of the Norman Conquest, some speculated. Its interior walls were whitewashed over rough plaster, the few windows Tudorish diamond paned, and the ceiling was low, the overhead beams black with kitchen, fireplace, candle, oil-lanthorn, or pipe smoke.

Or so it had been. During his long absence, old Mr. Beakman and his spinster daughter had added fair approximations of Jacobean Fold wood wainscot panelling. The walls were now painted a cheery red, and the beams, and the barman's counter, looked to be sanded down to fresh, raw wood, then linseeded and polished to a warm honey-brown. Beakman had gone with the times and had set aside a dining area round the fireplace on the right-hand half of the vast room, with new tables covered by pale tan cloths, whilst the left-hand half had been re-arranged to accommodate drinkers and smokers round the other fireplace, with double doors leading out to the trellised and pergolaed side garden, which was no longer a scraggly attempt at lawn, but brick-paved and railed in by low picket fences.

There were brass spitoons for those who chewed their quids, and even more brass candleholders along the walls, and brass lanthorns hung from the overhead beams, making the public house much brighter, warmer, and more welcoming a place than ever it had been before.

"My stars," Lewrie breathed as he shrugged out of his cloak and hat, noting the framed pictures hung on the walls, too; old pastorals and race horses, prize bulls and boars, and hunting scenes featuring packs of dogs gathered round mounted riders. "Who did all this?"

"Will ye look at 'im! Cap'm Lewrie t'th' life!" a woman cried from behind the long bar counter, past the customers bellied up to it. "Will, come see who's come home!"

"Maggie Cony?" Lewrie exclaimed, recognising the round-faced local lass who'd married his old Bosun, Will Cony. She'd thickened and gone "apple dumpling cheeked" but she was still the good-hearted and hardworking woman he remembered when both she and Cony had been in his employ 'tween the wars. "You work here now?"