To this he consented: and stepping back into a side room with the other fellow, returned in a minute alone, and carrying a lantern which, in spite of the moon, was needed to guide a stranger across that ruinous yard. The flare, as we pick’d our way along, fell for a moment on an open cart shed and, within, on the gilt panels of a coach that I recogniz’d. In the stable, that stood at the far end of the court, I was surprised to find half a dozen horses standing, ready saddled, and munching their fill of oats. They were ungroom’d, and one or two in a lather of sweat that on such a night was hard to account for. But I asked no questions, and my companion vouchsafed no talk, though twice I caught him regarding me curiously as I unbridled the mare in the only vacant stall. Not a word pass’d as he took the lantern off the peg again, and led the way up a ramshackle ladder to the loft above. He was a fat, lumbering fellow, and made the old timbers creak. At the top he set down the light, and pointed to a heap of straw in the corner. “Yon’s your bed,” he growled; and before I could answer, was picking his way down the ladder again. I look’d about, and shiver’d. The eaves of my bedchamber were scarce on speaking terms with the walls, and through a score of crannies at least the wind poured and whistled, so that after shifting my truss of straw a dozen times I found myself still the centre of a whirl of draught. The candle-flame, too, was puffed this way and that inside the horn sheath. I was losing patience when I heard footsteps below; the ladder creak’d, and the red hair and broad shoulders of a chambermaid rose into view. She carried a steaming mug in her hand, and mutter’d all the while in no very choice talk. The wench had a kind face, tho’; and a pair of eyes that did her more credit than her tongue. “And what’s to be my reward for this, I want to know?” she panted out, resting her left palm on her hip. “Why, a groat or two,” said I, “when it comes to the reckoning.” “Lud!” she cried, “what a dull young man!” “Dull?” “Aye—to make me ask for a kiss in so many words:” and with the back of her left hand she wiped her mouth for it frankly, while she held out the mug in her right. “Oh!” I said, “I beg your pardon, but my wits are frozen up, I think. There’s two, for interest: and another if you tell me whom your master entertains to-night, that I must be content with this crib.” She took the kisses with composure and said— “Well—to begin, there’s the gentlefolk that came this afternoon with their own carriage and heathenish French servant: a cranky old grandee and a daughter with more airs than a peacock: Sir Something-or-other Killigew—Lord bless the boy!” For I had dropp’d the mug and spilt the hot sack all about the straw, where it trickled away with a fragrance reproachfully delicious.