"I wish," he said, apologizing to his guests, as he set down a flagon
of sack, and promised some food immediately--"I wish the devil had flown
away with my wife and my whole family instead of this Wayland Smith,
who, I daresay, after all said and done, was much less worthy of the
distinction which Satan has done him."
"I hold opinion with you, good fellow," replied Wayland Smith; "and I
will drink to you upon that argument."
"Not that I would justify any man who deals with the devil," said mine
host, after having pledged Wayland in a rousing draught of sack, "but
that--saw ye ever better sack, my masters?--but that, I say, a man had
better deal with a dozen cheats and scoundrel fellows, such as this
Wayland Smith, than with a devil incarnate, that takes possession of
house and home, bed and board."
The poor fellow's detail of grievances was here interrupted by the
shrill voice of his helpmate, screaming from the kitchen, to which he
instantly hobbled, craving pardon of his guests. He was no sooner gone
than Wayland Smith expressed, by every contemptuous epithet in the
language, his utter scorn for a nincompoop who stuck his head under
his wife's apron-string; and intimated that, saving for the sake of
the horses, which required both rest and food, he would advise his
worshipful Master Tressilian to push on a stage farther, rather than pay
a reckoning to such a mean-spirited, crow-trodden, henpecked coxcomb, as
Gaffer Crane.
The arrival of a large dish of good cow-heel and bacon something soothed
the asperity of the artist, which wholly vanished before a choice capon,
so delicately roasted that the lard frothed on it, said Wayland, like
May-dew on a lily; and both Gaffer Crane and his good dame became, in
his eyes, very painstaking, accommodating, obliging persons.
According to the manners of the times, the master and his attendant
sat at the same table, and the latter observed, with regret, how little
attention Tressilian paid to his meal. He recollected, indeed, the pain
he had given by mentioning the maiden in whose company he had first seen
him; but, fearful of touching upon a topic too tender to be tampered
with, he chose to ascribe his abstinence to another cause.
"This fare is perhaps too coarse for your worship," said Wayland, as the
limbs of the capon disappeared before his own exertions; "but had you
dwelt as long as I have done in yonder dungeon, which Flibbertigibbet
has translated to the upper element, a place where I dared hardly broil
my food, lest the smoke should be seen without, you would think a fair
capon a more welcome dainty."