“Why yes,” I said, “with all my heart, when I have stabled the sorrel here.”
He led the way across the court, well paved but chok’d with weeds, toward the stable. I found it a spacious building, and counted sixteen stalls there; but all were empty save two, where stood the horses I had seen in Bodmin the day before. Having stabled Molly, I left the place (which was thick with cobwebs) and follow’d the old servant into the house.
He took me into a great stone kitchen, and brought out the pasty and cider, but poured out half a glass only.
“Have a care, young man: ’tis a luscious, thick, seductive drink,” and he chuckled.
“’Twould turn the edge of a knife,” said I, tasting it and looking at him: but his one blear’d eye was inscrutable. The pasty also was mouldy, and I soon laid it down.
“Hast a proud stomach that cometh of faring sumptuously: the beef therein is our own killing,” said he. “Young sir, art a man of blood, I greatly fear, by thy long sword and handiness with the firearms.”
“Shall be presently,” answered I, “if you lead me not to Master Tingcomb.”
He scrambled up briskly and totter’d out of the kitchen into a stone corridor, I after him. Along this he hurried, muttering all the way, and halted before a door at the end. Without knocking he pushed it open, and motioning me to enter, hasten’d back as he had come.
“Come in,” said a voice that seem’d familiar to me.
Though, as you know, ’twas still high day, in the room where now I found myself was every appearance of night: the shutters being closed, and six lighted candles standing on the table. Behind them sat the venerable gentleman whom I had seen in the coach, now wearing a plain suit of black, and reading in a great book that lay open on the table. I guess’d it to be the Bible; but noted that the candles had shades about them, so disposed as to throw the light, not on the page, but on the doorway where I stood.