Excerpt from Without Love or Licence a Tale of South Devon, Vol. 1 of 3 Whether it was coal or corn, timber or turnips, he always came out of the speculation some what the better for it. He was by this time reputed a warm man' amongst his friends, but neither he nor his wife was much addicted to show. They lived quietly, and though no one doubted Joe Mercer had money, nobody suspected him of being rich. Still, what could have made him take the old Dragon Inn? A house with a history, certainly, but a house, one would think, of which the history was ended; while, as every one knew, it had been shut up altogether for the last five years. Standing about a mile out of the town, a little off a road, which, running through a. Rich farming country, led to a large fishing village only, it was not likely to attract much custom. Years ago, when the Dragon was a prosperous house, it was much the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.