They had nearly reached the curate's humble cottage, without much further conversation, when the stranger repeated his inquiries as to the distance to the inn, and the probability of his obtaining there any tolerable accommodation. "A _clean_ bed," he said, "would content him; was he likely to find one?" A struggle had been going on, from the time they left the coach, between Harry Bolton's good-nature, and what he thought his due dignity. Every word his fellow-passenger had uttered had convinced him, more and more, that he was a man of education and good sense, to say the least; a totally different being from the class of whom Jabez Green, who expounded at Mount Pisgah in his own parish on Sundays, and did a little shoemaking and poaching on week-days, formed a specimen ever before his eyes; and if it had not seemed a ludicrous misapplication of hospitality to have entertained the great gun of schism within the lares of the "_persona ecclesia_," he would long ago have offered the very respectable and mild-mannered gentleman, dropped by an unlucky accident almost at his door, at least a good fire, and a pair of clean sheets for the night. Sleep at the Crown and Thistle! why, on consideration, it was scarcely creditable to himself to send him there. The landlord was one of the most disreputable fellows in the parish, and, by ten o'clock on a Saturday night, was usually so drunk as to be more likely to refuse a guest any accommodation at all, than to take any extra pains for him. And the dirt, and the noise, and the etceteras! No, Dr Bates had better have stuck to the inside of the coach than have tried the Crown and Thistle. But where else was he to go? There was a good spare bedroom, no doubt, at Barby farm, within half-a-mile; but it had not been occupied since Harry had slept in it himself on his first arrival in the parish, and then it took a week's notice to move the piles of wool and cheese, and have it duly aired. The stranger coughed. Harry grew desperate, and spoke out. "We are close to my little place now, sir. I think I can offer you what you will hardly find at the inn--a clean room and a well-aired bed; and it seems a mere act of common civility to beg you to accept it." With many thanks, but with the natural politeness and ease with which a gentleman receives from another the courtesy which he is always ready to offer himself, the hospitable invitation was at once freely accepted; and in five minutes they had passed the little gate, and were awaiting the opening of the door.