Thirty pounds of butter could never all be made in one day; she must begin her task overnight. True, little Jan was whining to go to bed as he tried vainly to keep awake on his small hard stool by the fire. The brat must wait; she could not attend to him now. He could sleep well enough leaning against the bricks of the chimney-corner. Or, no! the butter-making would take a long time, and Moll was never a methodical woman. Jan should lie down, just as he was, and have a nap in the kitchen until she was ready to attend to him. Roughly, but not unkindly, she pulled him off the stool and laid him down on a rug in a dark corner of the kitchen and told him to be off to sleep as fast as he could, stooping to cover him with an old coat of her husband's that was hanging on the door, as she spoke. Nothing loath, Jan shut his sleepy eyes, and, burying his little nose in the folds of the old coat, he went happily off into dreamland, soothed by the well-remembered out-door smell that always clung around his father's belongings. It did not take Moll long to fill the churn and to set it in its place. Just as she was busy shutting down the lid, there came a knock at the door. 'Plague take you, Stranger,' she grumbled, as she opened it, and a gust of snow and wind blew in upon her and the assembled guests in the tavern kitchen. 'You bring in more of the storm than you are likely to pay for your ale.' 'My desire is not for ale,' said the Stranger, speaking slowly, and looking at the woman keenly from underneath his shaggy eyebrows. 'I came but to ask thee for shelter from the storm; and for a little meat, if thou hast any to set before me.' 'To ask _thee_ for shelter.' 'If _thou_ hast any meat.' The unusual form of address caught Moll's ear. She looked more closely at her visitor. Yes, his lower limbs were not covered with homely Yorkshire frieze; they were encased in odd garments that must surely be made of leather, since the snowflakes lay upon them in crisp wreaths and wrinkles before they melted. She had heard of the strange being who was visiting those parts and she had no desire to make his acquaintance. 'Hey, lasses!' she called to her maids at the far end of the tavern parlour, 'here is the man in leather breeches himself, come to pay us a visit this wild night!' A shout of laughter went up from the men at their tankards. 'The man in leather breeches!' 'Send him out again into the storm! We'll have none of his company here, the spoil sport!' Moll nodded assent, and returning to her unwelcome guest, said shortly, 'Meat there is none for you here,' and moved towards the door, where the Stranger still stood, as if to close it upon him. But the man was not to be so easily dismissed. 'Hast thou then milk?' he asked. Moll laughed aloud. A man who did not want ale should not have milk; no money to be made out of that; especially this night of all nights, when every drop would be wanted for her Ladyship's butter.