'He don't belong to you?'
'Most certainly not,' with a contemptuous shrug.
'Where did you get mun?'
'He is travelling with us—that is all. He joined my father in taking a chaise from Launceston.'
'Why didn't y' travel by the mail-coach? Her goes by ivery day.'
'The coach had left Launceston when we arrived there from Falmouth, so we engaged a chaise. My father was in haste to reach Exeter, and that person joined us. I do not know his name, neither do I care. My father satisfied himself, I presume, of his respectability. That is all.'
'Where do'y come from, mistress? Over t'other side of the moor I reckon.'
'I come from France.'
Joyce was puzzled. Her geographical knowledge was too limited for her to know of France.
'I reckon that be a long way off, t'other side o' Prince's Town and the prisons, surely. Be there savages in them parts?'