Page:Guy Mannering Vol 3.djvu/103

Rh keeper, or the shriller tones of his helpmate, almost always in the tone of discontent, anger, or insolence. At other times the large mastiff, chained in the court-yard, answered with furious bark the insults of the idle loiterers who made a sport of incensing him.

At length the tedium of this weary space was broken by the entrance of a dirty-looking serving-wench, who made some preparations for dinner by laying a half-dirty cloth upon a whole-ditty deal table. A knife and fork, which had not been worn out by overcleaning, flanked a cracked delf plate; a nearly empty mustard-pot, placed on one side of the table, balanced a salt-cellar, containing an article of a greyish or rather blackish mixture, upon the other, both of stone-ware, and bearing too obvious marks of recent service. Shortly after, the same Hebe brought up a plate of beef collops, done in the frying-pan, with a huge allowance of grease, floating in an ocean of lukewarm