"'The Jolly Farmers,' sir, and I'm called Tom Saunders, very much at your service."
"A poor spot for an inn, surely?" said Rosmore.
"There are better, and there are worse," was the answer. "We're in touch with the main road, and they are good enough to say that the entertainment is worth going a little out of the way for."
"No doubt. We will judge for ourselves."
"And, although I blush to mention it, folks have a kind of liking for
Tom Saunders himself. It's often the landlord that makes the inn."
If the landlord blushed, it made no appreciable difference to his rosy countenance, which grinned good-humouredly as he executed Lord Rosmore's orders.
"Truly, it is good liquor," said Rosmore when he had sampled it. "Do you get good company to come out of their way to taste it?"
"Ay, sir, at times, and a few soldiers lately. You and your two men here will be from the West, very like. I've heard of Sedgemoor fight. May one know the latest news?"
"Who told you of Sedgemoor?"
"I think it was the smith down in the village, or it might 'a been Boyce, the carpenter; anyway, it was somebody down yonder. They'd heard it from someone on the road."