"Ban't there? I think there be, else you'd be shut up, Tom, an' not roaming free."
This allusion made the company laugh, for, despite his slim shape and peering eyes, Tom Putt was a daring poacher—one of Izaac Walton's wicked but most skilful disciples. He killed many a salmon, and he shot many a partridge intended for a nobler destiny than slaughter at his hand.
A stranger entered the bar of the "Saracen's Head" at this moment. The man shook the wet from his coat, went to the fire, and ordered a glass of hot brandy and water.
"Nice plum weather still, your honour," said Uncle Smallridge, as he made his way from the blaze. "The sun have been drawing up the autumn rains these many days, but winter's here at last. The water will all come home again in snow."
"Wet enough," said the other. "I marvel your grass here doesn't rot in the ground."
"An' so it do in some places," answered Richard Beer; "as if it wasn't hard enough to get a living for the dumb things without walling the Moor off against the rightful owners. Come presently there won't be a bit of sweet grazing us can call our own. Now here's this Mr. Malherb—a foreigner from down Exeter way—bitten off a few more hundred acres of the best."
"Who says any ill of him?" asked the stranger.
"'Tis only hearsay," declared Woodman. "There may be good in him; but I wish he'd bided away."
"Lord knows I wouldn't speak no malice against the gentleman," continued Beer, "for I am going to ax him to give me work. He wants a few understanding chaps, 'tis said. An' I know the Moor better'n my Bible, more shame to me. You'll bear me out, neighbours, that I can get what man may from Dartymoor soil?"
"You'm very witty at it, us all knows," admitted Harvey Woodman.