"Nay, it is not that."

"Pray, what is it?"

"I doubt not that you have the money."

"Then why refuse me what I ask?"

"I have no spare beds. When I said you could remain, I knew not that all
my rooms were taken."

The child raised her beautiful but dirt-stained face to the host in
mute appeal, while her father quietly continued:

"Put us in the stables; we are used to it."

"I cannot."

"Pray why not? Surely the enemies of the son of God would not refuse him
that."

The host started at the awful reply, which to him was sacrilege, and
answered in a faltering voice:

"The horses take up all the room."

The stranger seemed not entirely put out by the persistent refusal of
the landlord and said:

"We will find some corner in which to lie after supper."

"I will give you no supper."

This declaration, made in a firm tone, brought the mysterious traveller
to his feet.

"Can you, a Christian, speak thus?" he cried. "We are dying of hunger. I
have been on my legs since sunrise, and have walked ten leagues to-day,
for most part carrying my child on my back. I have the money, I am
hungry, and I will have food."

"I have none for you," said the landlord.

"What are you cooking in your kitchen, the savory odors of which are
maddening to a hungry man?"

"It is all ordered."

"By whom?"

"Merchants and travellers from Plymouth and New Amsterdam."

"You can surely spare a crust for my child, she is starving."

The stern landlord hesitated, when a loud authoritative "Ahem!" from his
invisible wife strengthened him, and he said:

"I have not a morsel to spare."

"I am at an inn. I am hungry, I have money, and I shall remain,"
answered the stranger, sitting by the side of the little girl, who
nervously clutched his arm. The landlord seemed quite put out, if not a
little awed by the determined manner of the stranger, and turning about
re-entered the house, where he held a whispered consultation with some
one. Terror overcame the hunger of the tired child, and, clinging to her
father, she whispered:

"Let us go from this house. I am not hungry now, let us go to some other
place where we will not be injured."

He laid his hard, rough hand assuringly on the shoulder of the
frightened child and sought to soothe her fears. At this moment the
landlord, who had had his courage renewed by his wife, came quite up to
the stranger and, in a voice that was terribly in earnest, said:

"I know more of you by far t