The farmer stared, and thought his new friend not quite so sound in
his mental as he evidently was in his physical conformation, but
replied, with a laugh, "Make yourself easy, then. I have only one
niece, and she is married to an iron-monger and lives in Exeter."

On entering the farmhouse, Kenelm's host conducted him straight into
the kitchen, and cried out, in a hearty voice, to a comely middle-aged
dame, who, with a stout girl, was intent on culinary operations,
"Hulloa! old woman, I have brought you a guest who has well earned his
supper, for he has done the work of two, and I have promised him a
bed."

The farmer's wife turned sharply round. "He is heartily welcome to
supper. As to a bed," she said doubtfully, "I don't know." But here
her eyes settled on Kenelm; and there was something in his aspect so
unlike what she expected to see in an itinerant haymaker, that she
involuntarily dropped a courtesy, and resumed, with a change of tone,
"The gentleman shall have the guest-room: but it will take a little
time to get ready; you know, John, all the furniture is covered up."

"Well, wife, there will be leisure eno' for that. He don't want to go
to roost till he has supped."

"Certainly not," said Kenelm, sniffing a very agreeable odour.

"Where are the girls?" asked the farmer.

"They have been in these five minutes, and gone upstairs to tidy
themselves."