Tibby curtseyed and went to do his bidding, while the new arrival out-stared each man present in turn, then went to the peat fire and kicked it.
“Give ’e gude day,” said Elias Bassett, in a friendly tone. “I daresay now this here lonesome auld Moor do seem but a wisht, pixy-ridden place to a gen’leman like you be.”
“It is very well, my good fellow—a little contracted, that is all. The wolds are more spacious, but a gentleman might make a living here if others would but let him. Does anybody with a fat purse ride this way?”
Elias and his companions stared, and the lower jaw of Mr. French fell until he appeared imbecile. Yet the stranger’s cynical hint brought up his listeners a little more on to a level with him. Their virtue owed it to itself to stand as high as his confessed or pretended rascality.
“That sort of talk leads to a hemp collar, mister,” murmured Bassett; but Merle shook his head.
“Mere talk leads nowhere,” he answered. “It is the fashion of you clowns to take a jest in earnest. But have no fear. I am not come among you with any such purpose as the road. To-day I have ridden from Exeter and, since leaving Moretonhampstead, saw nought but carrion crows and a fox or two. This place tempts no man to dishonesty. I can see upon your faces that you scarce know the meaning of the word.”
Gammer Tibby returned, and Merle, nodding in a friendly way to all present, followed her through the bar to the private chambers behind it. Then, hardly had the horseman clanked from sight, when Ostler Joe Mudge appeared with his mouth full of news.
“Wheer be the gen’leman to? Not here? Then I can speak. Aw jimmery, what a hoss—if ’tis a hoss! Never seed the like in all my years! Come an’ catch sight for yourselves, sawls, for you’ll never believe me. Eyes like a human, an’ a body all so bright as brimstone, to the last hair in the tail of un!”
While the loafers inspected a big horse of unusual colour, Nicholas Merle introduced himself to his cousin. They had never met before, and a deep interest and instant friendship wakened in Minnie’s breast for the only relation she possessed in the world. He was a tall, resolute man of thirty-five, with strange oaths and fatherly manner. He declared that chance alone brought him so far south, and that being at Exeter he had determined with himself to see his relations.
“Not until I reached Moreton did I hear of our uncle’s death; then I should have come no farther, but I knew of your existence, and thought I would at least get a memory of you. And a very pleasant memory it will be, Cousin, for you’re the queen of the Dartmoors, I hear, and so you should be. I never want to see a prettier maid.”