Mrs. Collins is alternately looked upon by patrons of the Hare and Sheaf as an ale-bearing angel and something like an incoming cannonball. If all the maternal attention and puffed-up aggression of a broody hen could be poured into a human body, that's the side of Nancy the customers see.

It's little wonder, with one grown daughter and two young brown girls below her helping in the inn parlour, and her fifteen-year-old son in the stables. John often carries their youngest boy about (to the point four-year-old George can very competently serve the correct drink without spillage and ask the right payment, providing any reaching or lifting beyond his power is seen to) and may use lifting or having to leave the child on a high stool as excuses not to intervene if Nancy is on the warpath over a pass at Hessie or some uncouth remark about his own proportions.