The lawyer here made a diversion.
“Has any one heard aught of the fugitives who escaped rope and quartering knife at Exeter?”
The red-haired page on hearing this gazed intently, with a very malicious smile, upon the face of the farmer’s son.
“Why, no,” said the leech, who was travelling from Exeter to Wells; “and yet they have made diligent search; but who can explore the wilds of Dartmoor, where they are doubtless hidden?”
“Has no one been hung for that affair?” inquired the merchant. “Hemp is going down in the market!”
“No one as yet,” said the page, with a slight laugh, which sat unamiably on one so young.
“Well, then,” said the lawyer, “some one will have to be.”
Again the page looked at the young farmer, who returned a broad stare with the greatest apparent unconcern, and observed, in a broad Devonian dialect, that “Dartmoor was a cranky place to hide in.”
The page looked puzzled.
Here “mine host” announced supper, and it soon smoked on the board: a sucking-pig stewed in its own gravy, a saddle of mutton, a chine of pork, a loin of beef, all well cooked and savoury; bread in plenty, but no vegetables; salt, but no pepper or mustard; wooden platters, rude abundance, but no luxury.