The man puffed his round cheeks with indignation and rattled the plates with vigor. Dirk Hatfield paused in his assault upon the pigeon stew long enough to reply:
“Oh, but they’ll get their trouncing before long, mark me. English tars and English ships rule the sea; it’s not for the Yankees to hoist a flag without British permission, and their colored rags will soon be trailed in the dirt of their decks, and Britannia queen of them all, as is her place.”
“Are you up from the water-side, friends?” asked the cook, as Ethan and Dale calmly ate of the dishes he had placed before them, and watched the highwayman cautiously.
The highwayman lifted his head and gave the boy a long look of interest.
“Are the press-gangs out, there, as in London?” asked the proprietor.
“I’ve heard that they were busy there,” said Ethan.
“It’s the same all over the kingdom, I suppose.”
Neither of the Americans replied; and in a few moments Hatfield spoke up.
“Plymouth is a brisk little place; it is no great size, indeed, but many things happen there.”
“Right,” said the pastry cook; “the fleets sail from there very often.”
“It’s not by sea alone that Plymouth is brisk,” continued the gentleman of the road; “but by land as well. And the country between that town and London offers many opportunities to a man of parts.”
“Ay. I’ve heard it said often that it was a most excellent farming section.”
“Good strokes of business are to be done thereabouts,” continued Hatfield. “My last visit there,” and he slapped the breast of his coat with a chuckle, “promises to pay me a pretty penny, indeed.”
“The luck was with you, then?” cried the pastry cook with innocent interest.
“It was,” laughed Hatfield. “It was very much with me, sir.”
“He still has the dispatch,” whispered Ethan to Dale.
“In his breast pocket,” returned the sailor, in the same low tone. “But he is armed.”
“If we take him suddenly we’ll have the advantage for all that.”
The pastry cook and the highwayman continued their talk; the two Americans had their heads together, thrashing out the situation.
“It’s dark without,” said Ethan at last, guardedly. “We’ll take him unawares when he is about to mount his horse.”
Dale now and then glanced with much interest into the street through the glass of the doors. He leaned forward at length and spoke to the proprietor.