“Villainy, Jack!”
“Hush!” I answered, “and listen: Master Tingcomb is no more in that coffin than I.”
“Then where is he?”
“That is just what we are to discover.” As I said this a light broke on me. “By the Lord,” I cried, “’tis the very same!”
Delia open’d her eyes wide.
“Wait,” I said: “I begin to touch ground.”
We returned to the great hall. The straight-hair’d man was still eating, and opposite sat Billy, that had not budg’d, but now beckoning to me, very mysterious, whisper’d in a voice that made the plates rattle—
“That’s—a damned—rogue!”
’Twas discomposing, but the truth. In fact, I had just solv’d a puzzle. This holy-speaking minister was no other than the groom I had seen at Bodmin Fair holding Master Tingcomb’s horses.
By this, the sun was down, and Delia soon made an excuse to withdraw to her own room. Nor was it long before the rest followed her example. I found our chambers prepared, near together, in a wing of the house at some distance from the hall. Delia’s was next to mine, as I made sure by knocking at her door: and on the other side of me slept Billy with two of his crew. My own bed was in a great room sparely furnish’d; and the linen indifferent white. There was a plenty of clean straw, tho’, on the floor, had I intended to sleep—which I did not.