By this time Mrs. Fairbank has got over her terror; she is devoured by curiosity now.  The miserable creature on the straw has appealed to the imaginative side of her character.  Her illimitable appetite for romance hungers and thirsts for more.  She shakes me impatiently by the arm.

“Do you hear?  There is a woman at the bottom of it, Percy!  There is love and murder in it, Percy!  Where are the people of the inn?  Go into the yard, and call to them again.”

My wife belongs, on her mother’s side, to the South of France.  The South of France breeds fine women with hot tempers.  I say no more.  Married men will understand my position.  Single men may need to be told that there are occasions when we must not only love and honor—­we must also obey—­our wives.

I turn to the door to obey my wife, and find myself confronted by a stranger who has stolen on us unawares.  The stranger is a tiny, sleepy, rosy old man, with a vacant pudding-face, and a shining bald head.  He wears drab breeches and gaiters, and a respectable square-tailed ancient black coat.  I feel instinctively that here is the landlord of the inn.

“Good morning, sir,” says the rosy old man.  “I’m a little hard of hearing.  Was it you that was a-calling just now in the yard?”

Before I can answer, my wife interposes.  She insists (in a shrill voice, adapted to our host’s hardness of hearing) on knowing who that unfortunate person is sleeping on the straw.  “Where does he come from?  Why does he say such dreadful things in his sleep?  Is he married or single?  Did he ever fall in love with a murderess?  What sort of a looking woman was she?  Did she really stab him or not?  In short, dear Mr. Landlord, tell us the whole story!”

Dear Mr. Landlord waits drowsily until Mrs. Fairbank has quite done—­then delivers himself of his reply as follows: 

“His name’s Francis Raven.  He’s an Independent Methodist.  He was forty-five year old last birthday.  And he’s my hostler.  That’s his story.”

My wife’s hot southern temper finds its way to her foot, and expresses itself by a stamp on the stable yard.

The landlord turns himself sleepily round, and looks at the horses.  “A fine pair of horses, them two in the yard.  Do you want to put ’em in my stables?” I reply in the affirmative by a nod.  The landlord, bent on making himself agreeable to my wife, addresses her once more.  “I’m a-going to wake Francis Raven.  He’s an Independent Methodist.  He was forty-five year old last birthday.  And he’s my hostler.  That’s his story.”

Having issued this second edition of his interesting narrative, the landlord enters the stable.  We follow him to see how he will wake Francis Raven, and what will happen upon that.  The stable broom stands in a corner; the landlord takes it—­advances toward the sleeping hostler—­and coolly stirs the man up with a broom as if he was a wild beast in a cage.  Francis Raven starts to his feet with a cry of terror—­looks at us wildly, with a horrid glare of suspicion in his eyes—­recovers himself the next moment—­and suddenly changes into a decent, quiet, respectable serving-man.