“The woman’s reason wanders,” said the minister, turning to the little hermit, who was drying his coarse robe before the fire. “No, priest!” replied the woman. “Learn where you are. I would rather inspire horror than pity. I am not mad, but the wife of--” A prolonged and violent knocking at the door drowned her words, to the great disappointment of Spiagudry and Ordener, who had silently listened to the dialogue. “Cursed,” muttered the red woman, “be the mayor and council of Skongen, who gave us this tower so near the high-road for our dwelling! Perhaps that is not Nychol, now.” Still, she took up the lamp. “After all, if it be another traveller, what matters it? The brook can flow where the torrent has passed.” The four travellers, left alone, examined each other by the firelight. Spiagudry, terrified at first by the hermit’s voice, and then reassured by his black beard, might have trembled afresh if he had seen the piercing eye with which the monk observed him from beneath his cowl. In the general silence the minister ventured a question: “Brother monk, I presume that you are one of the Catholic priests who escaped from the last persecution, and that you were returning to your retreat when I was fortunate enough to meet you. Can you tell me where we are?” The broken door of the ruined staircase opened before the hermit could answer. “Woman, let a storm but burst, and there is always a crowd to sit at our hated board and take shelter beneath our accursed roof.” “Nychol,” replied the wife, “I could not help it!” “What do I care how many guests you have, provided they pay? Money is as well earned by lodging a traveller as by strangling a thief.” The speaker paused at the door, and the four strangers had ample opportunity to examine him. He was a man of colossal size, dressed, like their hostess, in red serge. His enormous head seemed to rest directly upon his broad shoulders, in strong contrast with his gracious lady’s long, bony neck. He had a low forehead, flat nose, and thick eyebrows; his eyes, rimmed with red, shone like burning coals in a pool of blood. The lower part of his face was shaved smooth, exposing his big mouth, whose black lips were parted in a hideous grin, like the gaping edges of a never-healing wound. Two wisps of frizzled beard, extending from his cheeks to his chin, made his face seem square when seen from the front. He wore a gray felt hat, which dripped with rain, and which he did not deign to remove in the presence of the four travellers. As he looked at him, Benignus Spiagudry uttered a cry of fright, and the Lutheran minister turned away, struck with horror and surprise; while the master of the house, recognizing, addressed him thus: “What, are you here, minister! Indeed, I did not expect to have the pleasure of seeing your scared and woebegone face again to-day.” The priest mastered his first feeling of repulsion. His face became serious and serene.