There was something in front of the fire, too, that
would have been inviting to a hungry man, if it had been in a
different stage of cooking. It was a small bit of pork suspended
from the kettle-hanger by a string passed through a large door-key, in
a way known to primitive house-keepers unpossessed of jacks. But the
pork had been hung at the farthest extremity of the hanger, apparently
to prevent the roasting from proceeding too rapidly during the owner's
absence. The old staring simpleton had hot meat for his supper,
then? thought Dunstan. People had always said he lived on mouldy
bread, on purpose to check his appetite. But where could he be at this
time, and on such an evening, leaving his supper in this stage of
preparation, and his door unfastened? Dunstan's own recent
difficulty in making his way suggested to him that the weaver had
perhaps gone outside his cottage to fetch in fuel, or for some such
brief purpose, and had slipped into the Stone-pit. That was an
interesting idea to Dunstan, carrying consequences of entire
novelty. If the weaver was dead, who had a right to his money? Who
would know where his money was hidden? Who would know that anybody had
come to take it away? He went no farther into the subtleties of
evidence: the pressing question, 'Where is the money?' now took such
entire possession of him as to make him quite forget that the weaver's
death was not a certainty.
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