FOOTNOTES
[49] The reader who has penetrated the Cheddar caves will recognize the description.
CHAPTER XI.
AN ANCIENT INN.
A month had passed away since the scaffold had lost its victims at Exeter, and although the agents of government had made every enquiry, searched every suspicious nook, and each house supposed to belong to malcontents, no trace of those who had been snatched from the hungry jaws of tyranny when about to crush them, had rewarded the zealous and obsequious spies.
Neither did the common people care to disguise their satisfaction, although it must be owned there were those whom we have already called “cannibals,” who grieved that so goodly a show had been spoilt at the very crisis. The frequent executions, and sanguinary spectacles which this paternal government had provided, like the shows of the amphitheatre at an earlier age, had created a craving for the excitement of witnessing bloodshed amongst certain morbid spirits, to the destruction of all better feelings and human sympathies.