"Iss, old Joe be a decent good soul of his trade, and we was vexed, trewly, when 'a got his eye put out in a fight by Lunnan Cove. But there, he shouldn' meddle with honest free-traders. Lawk-a-massy! I be speakin' free."
"Oh, you're quite safe with me. I'm a bit of a free-trader myself, in my way."
They went on, and in a few minutes came to an inn at the lower end of the village near the beach. This was the Five Pilchards. The village boasted another inn, a hundred yards away, called the Three Jolly Mariners; but it belied its name, being frequented mainly by farm labourers.
The traveller paid and dismissed the fisher, and rapped at the closed door. It was opened by the innkeeper himself, a podgy, red-nosed, blear-eyed fellow, with an underhung lip, and a chin like a dewlap. A small candle-lamp hung above in the doorway, showing a dim yellow ray upon the smiling face of the visitor. The innkeeper started back.
"I startled you, eh?" said the visitor. "Yes, it is I myself—John Trevanion come home again. I am getting on in years, Doubledick, and I felt I should like to die among my friends."
"Ha, ha! Ho, ho!" laughed the innkeeper. "'Tis Maister John, for sure, come home with his little jokes. Come along in, maister, come in; daze me if I bean't as pleased as pigs to see 'ee."
"Take me to a room, Doubledick, and get some clean sheets, will you? And send me up something passable to eat and drink; I'll sup alone."
"Iss, sure. I'll give 'ee the best I've got in the house. What do 'ee say, now, to collops and fried taties, or a nice bit o' bass, or a dish o' pickled pilchurs, and some real old—you know what, Maister John? Hee, hee!"
"Whatever you like, Doubledick, only be quick about it."
The innkeeper led his visitor along a passage past the open door of the bar-parlour. John Trevanion glanced in as he went by. A number of rough fishermen in various garments sat drinking on settles along the wall. The most noticeable among them was a man of vast breadth, brawny and muscular, his strong features tanned copper-colour by years of sea-faring, his thick hair and beard the hue of ebony. The sleeves of his scarlet jersey were turned up, revealing brown and hairy forearms that would have befitted a Hercules.