“Lord, what a dull hole this is, or I’m saved!”
The woman had her sleeves turned up, and her big forearms were brown and comely.
“Dull,” said the man, “when there’s plenty to eat?”
“And drink, Sim?”
“Better than Tyburn or Newgate, anyway. Only there ain’t nothing to lay one’s fist to; not so much as a dog for old Blizzard to take by the throat.”
“Turn smuggler, my dear, if you want to let blood.”
The man sniffed at the pot.
“Smuggler? No, thank ye; we don’t want none of those gentry inside Thorn. Stodging about the country for a keg of liquor when we can have it for going to the cupboard! This deuced viz of mine smarts like hot Hollands to-night.”
He untied the strings and turned the mask up, but the woman did not look at him, it being near supper-time and food upon the table. They were not Sussex folk, nor even country people, by their speech, but gentry whose childhood had been passed within hail of Southwark or the Savoy.
“Who’s going to carry the girl’s food up to-night?”