The Fisherman's Rest stood where it had done for two centuries and long before thrones had tottered and anointed heads fallen on the scaffold. The oak rafters, black with age, the monumental hearth, the tables and high-backed benches, seemed like mute testimonies to good order and to tradition, just as the shiny pewter mugs, the foaming ale, the brass that glittered like gold, bore witness to unimpaired prosperity and an even, well-regulated life.
Over in the kitchen yonder, Mistress Sally Waite, as she now was, still ruled with a firm if somewhat hasty hand, the weight of which, so the naughty gossips averred, even her husband, Master Harry Waite, had experienced more than once. She still queened it over her father's household, presided over his kitchen, and drove the young scullery wenches to their task with her sharp tongue and an occasional slap. But The Fisherman's Rest could not have gone on without her. The copper saucepans would in truth not have glittered so, nor would the home-brewed ale have tasted half so luscious to Master Jellyband's faithful customers, had not Mistress Sally's strong brown hands drawn it for them, with just the right amount of creamy foam on the top and not a bit too much.
And so it was still many a "Ho, Sally! 'Ere Sally! 'Ow long'll you be with that there beer!" or "Say, Sally! A cut of your cheese and home-baked bread; and look sharp about it!" that resounded from end to end of the long, low-raftered coffee-room of The Fisherman's Rest, on this fine May day of the year of grace 1794.
Sally Waite, her muslin cap set at a becoming angle, her kerchief primly folded over her well-developed bosom, and her kirtle neatly raised above a pair of exceedingly shapely ankles, was in and out of the room, in and out of the kitchen, tripping it like a benevolent if somewhat substantial fairy, bandying chaff here, administering rebuke there, hot, panting and excited.
§2
The while mine host, Master Jellyband—perhaps a shade more portly of figure, a thought more bald of pate, these last two years—stood with stubby legs firmly planted upon his own hearth, wherein, despite the warmth of a glorious afternoon, a log fire blazed away merrily. He was giving forth his views upon the political situation of Europe generally with the self-satisfied assurance born of complete ignorance and true British insular prejudice.
Believe me, Mr. Jellyband was in no two minds about "them murderin' furriners over yonder" who had done away with their King and Queen and all their nobility and quality, and whom England had at last decided to lick into shape.
"And not a moment too soon, hark'ee, Mr. 'Empseed," he went on sententiously. "And if I 'ad my way, we should 'ave punished 'em proper long before this—blown their bloomin' Paris into smithereens, and carried off the pore Queen afore those murderous villains 'ad 'er pretty 'ead off of 'er shoulders!"
Mr. Hempseed, from his own privileged corner in the inglenook, was not altogether prepared to admit that.
"I am not for interfering with other folks' ways," he said, raising his quaking treble so as to stem effectually the torrent of Master Jellyband's eloquence. "As the Scriptures say——"