stood in his path he
stopped his horse.

"Is there an inn where a traveller may sleep?" he asked.

"Assuredly," replied the man, "and find forage for his horse. The last
house--but I will myself show your Honour the way."

"There is no need, my friend, that you should take a colic," said Wogan.

"I shall earn enough drink to correct the colic," said the man. He had a
sack over his head and shoulders to protect him from the rain, and
stepped out in front of Wogan's horse. They came to the end of the
street and passed on into the open darkness. About twenty yards farther
a house stood by itself at the roadside, but there were only lights in
one or two of the upper windows, and it held out no promise of
hospitality. In front of it, however, the man stopped; he opened the
door and halloaed into the passage. Wogan stopped too, and above his
head something creaked and groaned like a gibbet in the wind. He looked
up and saw a sign-board glimmering in the dusk with a new coat of white
paint. He had undoubtedly come to the inn, and he dismounted.

The landlord advanced at that moment to the door.

"My man," said he, "will take your horse to the stable;" and the fellow
who had guided Wogan led the horse off.

"Oh, is he your man?" said Wogan. "Ah!" And he followed the landlord
into the house.

It was not only the sign-board which had been newly painted, for in the
narrow passage the landlord stopped Wogan.

"Have a care, sir," said he; "the walls are wet. It will be best if you
stand still while I go forward and bring a light."

He went forward in the dark and opened a door at the end of the passage.
A glow of ruddy light came through the doorway, and Wogan caught a
glimpse of a brick-floored kitchen and a great open chimney and one or
two men on a bench before the fire. Then the door was again closed. The
closing of the door seemed to Wogan a churlish act.

"The hospitality," said he to himself, "which plants a man in the road
so that a traveller on a rainy night may not miss his bed should at
least leave the kitchen door open. Why should I stay here in the dark?"

Wogan went forward, and from the careful way in which he walked,--a way
so careful and stealthy indeed that his footsteps made no sound,--it
might have been inferred that he believed the floor to be newly painted
too. He had, at all events, no such scruples about the kitchen door, for
he seized the handle and flung it open quickly. He was met at once by a