The excellent man, although evidently puzzled as to who we might be—our mode of life was certainly such as to justify his gravest suspicions—was at great pains to conceal any doubts of our character and occupation that he might entertain. But the moment we entered the ample food-smelling kitchen of the farm, the ceiling hung if you please with hams, a rare dish of bacon frizzling before the fire, and a breakfast table that to our charmed eyes was almost overborne with good homely and appetizing things, we had to run the gauntlet of the farmer's wife. She was a little, keen-featured, hard-faced woman, with, as we were soon to discover, the devil of a sharp tongue. She ruffled her feathers as soon as she saw us.
"Lork-a-mercy!" says she, "I didn't know, Joseph, as 'ow you was a-bringing of company to breakfast."
"I didn't know mysen," says Joseph complacently. Then followed a moment of embarrassment. It was plainly the good man's duty to present us to his wife. She very properly expected it of him. But as in his own phrase he did not know us from Adam himself, he was at a loss to know in what terms to represent us. Nor did the pause that ensued help matters at all. The farmer's wife had from the first, as her manner showed, been by no means disposed to view us favourably. There was evidently something in our appearance that had caused her to take a strong prejudice against us. One cannot be surprised that this was the case, however, seeing that we were both unwashed, and as unkempt as we possibly could be, whilst to add a final touch to the picture we presented, I was embellished with a puffy and discoloured eye, and a bloodied lip. These misfortunes, when her good man had made appearances ten times more unfortunate by his hesitation, his wife was only too ready to take as a confirmation of her suspicions. We were a pair of worthless persons, and Joseph was unable to account for the sudden impulse that had led him to bring us into that respectable abode. For if we were persons of some credit, why did not Joseph say so at once? His wife sniffed, and after gazing at us in a most disconcerting manner, was moved to say:
"Joseph, I'm surprised at you. I'll have no wicked vagabond play-actors here. I've always done my best to keep this house respectable, and, please God, it shall always be so. How dare you bring such people here? I'll be bound you found them sleeping in your barn, and then, soft-hearted fool that you are, you bring them in to breakfast. Oh, I know; you can't deceive me. It is not enough then that they should trespass on your premises, lie on your hay, and rob your hen-roosts, but you must encourage 'em in it into the bargain, and bring them into this clean, wholesome kitchen that you know I've always took such a pride in."
The farmer turned as red as a cabbage. In his heart he was bound to admit that every word his wife uttered was true in substance. But he was a very honest fellow; and though he might feel that he was greatly to blame for taking a couple of vagrants so much under his wing, he was not the man to go back on his hospitality. He stood by us nobly.
"Wife," says he, "what words be these? If I choose to ask a lady and gentleman to come and sit at table with me, shall my own wife insult them lo their faces?"
"Lady and gentleman!" says the redoubtable wife. "A pretty sort of lady and gentleman, ain't they? A brazen madam with a hat on. Oh, and curls too! Lord, look at her! If she's not a play-actress I've never seen one. And what a bully of a rogue she has got with her, too. Hath he not the very visnomy of a footpad? He's lately escaped from Newgate Gaol, I'll take my oath on't."
There could be no doubt that this good lady was blest with a tongue of the sharpest kind. Her husband was terribly put out by it. Poor little Cynthia was, too. For all her high breeding and her modish London insolence, which in circumstances favourable to it was wont to sit so charmingly upon her, she could hardly restrain her tears. I suppose it is that a woman can never bear to be ridiculed, or abused, or put in a false position. The poor child trembled and clung to my arm, while her face grew pink and white by turns.
"Oh, Jack," she whispered, "do say something that will put us right. Tell them who we are. I cannot bear to be spoken to like this."
"You surely would not have me spoil the comedy just now?" says I. "I am enjoying it vastly."