"Well, needs must, I s’pose," grumbled the servant. "I’ll go up and wake the captain, and be cursed horrible for my pains. Who shall I say wants him?" "Tell un a friend from the country." The porter went into the inn, and soon reappeared in the gallery at the top of the house, where he tapped at the door of one of the bedrooms opening from it. He tapped once, twice, thrice, and received no answer; then to his fourth knock came a response the tone of which, though not the words, could be heard in the yard below. A colloquy ensued, of which only the share of the inn servant was distinctly audible to Sherebiah. "A man from the country, Cap’n, to see you." Mumble from within. "So I told him, but here he bides." More mumbling. "Didn’t tell me his name; a man from the country was all he said, and I knows no more." The answering mumble was of higher and impatient mood. Then the man came slowly downstairs, grumbling under his breath all the way. "You’re to go up," he said to the stranger. "’Tis number thirty-two. And fine tantrums he be in, waked out of sleep; as if I ain’t waked out of sleep or kept from it day and night, and all year long." The man entered the inn after the servant, and began to ascend. Sherebiah meanwhile, looking around, had espied another stairway at the opposite angle of the courtyard. Darting across on tiptoe, he mounted quickly, quietly, and reached the gallery above in time to see the messenger disappear into the captain’s room. He hurried along, and, relying on the porter’s complaint of the paucity of business, he opened the door of the adjacent room and slipped in, leaving the door ajar. Through the thin partition he heard the murmur of voices in the next room, but could not catch a word distinctly. In a few moments, however, there was a crash as of a chair being overthrown, followed by a torrent of execrations from the captain. Then the door of the next room opened, and Aglionby came out on to the gallery accompanied by his visitor. "Hang you and the squire too!" said the angry warrior. "The tinder’s wet, and I can’t light my candle. Give me the letter and I’ll read it by the light of the lantern yonder, and catch my death o’ cold withal." Shrinking back into the darkness of his room, Sherebiah caught sight of Captain Aglionby as he passed the half-open door on his way to the single lantern that feebly lit up the gallery. He had pulled on his breeches and stockings, but for the rest was in night attire. The lantern swung from a hook at the corner of the gallery, three rooms beyond that into which Sherebiah had ventured. Standing beneath it, the captain broke the seal of the letter given him by the visitor, and read rapidly under his breath. The reading finished, he stuffed the paper into his pocket and chuckled. "Stap me, he begs and prays me now!" he exclaimed. "See, Jock, tell me what ye know of this. Ye ha’n’t read the letter, ha’ ye? By the Lord Harry, I’ll slit—"