‘After all, why not?’ ejaculated Jasper, as he saw his father, after a moment’s hesitation, disappear within the ruinous porch of the roadside public-house.
CHAPTER IV.—AT THE TRAVELLER’S REST.
‘Person of the name of Hold? I should think so, rather. Want to see him, do you? Turn to your right, then; get up them stone steps, and just keep straight till you’re past the water-butt, and you’ll twig the tap-room door.’
It was a sharp-eyed sharp-tongued boy who spoke, a boy in a tattered jacket that had once been blue, and had once been garnished with brass anchor buttons; but who retained his Cockney accent and his air of brisk effrontery, like that of a London sparrow.
‘Can’t you make out Her Majesty’s English, Mr Stiffback?’ said this impudent servitor of The Traveller’s Rest, seeing that Sir Sykes hesitated.
‘You keep a civil tongue, Deputy,’ broke in a deeper voice from within the darkling passage. ‘This, I suppose, is the gentleman who received a letter from a party called Hold? Very good. This way, sir, please; and mind you don’t hurt your head against the beam, for the ceiling’s low and light’s scarce. So. Here we are; and this is the tap-room, and my name is Hold. At this end of the room we’ll be quietest.’
And the baronet passively permitted himself to be led up some stone steps and down some brick steps, and finally into a long low room, at one end of which, although the weather was warm and the season summer, there glowed and crackled a large fire of mingled peat and wood, around which were clustered seven or eight persons male and female, two of whom were smoking short discoloured pipes, while the others were conversing in hoarse tones, or sniffing, with somewhat of a wolfish expression of countenance, the savoury fumes that arose from a frying-pan which a gaunt man in frowsy black was carefully holding over the hottest part of the fire.
There was a low wooden screen or partition, about breast-high, which stretched across some three-fourths of this delectable apartment, which was rudely furnished with some wooden settles and rush-bottomed chairs, and a couple of greasy tables, vamped and clamped with sheet-iron to repair the injury which excitable customers had done to the woodwork.
‘My name, Sir Sykes, is Hold,’ said the owner of the name, when the baronet had taken his seat on one of the mean-looking chairs, and his singular correspondent had placed himself on one of the benches opposite.
‘I never heard it before, nor, to the best of my recollection, have we ever met,’ said Sir Sykes dryly.