n. "Tell him there is a
gentleman here that wants a bed. Ask him what's to be done."

The girl favoured me with a long and peculiar glance, then turning on
her heel she left the room. As soon as she did so the old woman peered
forward and looked curiously at me.

"I'm sorry you are staying," she said; "don't forget as I warned you.
Remember, this ain't a proper inn at all. Once it was a mill, but that
was afore Bindloss's day and mine. Gents would come in the summer and
put up for the fishing, but then the story of the ghost got abroad, and
lately we have no visitors to speak of, only an odd one now and then who
ain't wanted--no, he ain't wanted. You see, there was three deaths here.
Yes"--she held up one of her skinny hands and began to count on her
fingers--"yes, three up to the present; three, that's it. Ah, here comes
Bindloss."

A shuffling step was heard in the passage, and an old man, bent with
age, and wearing a long white beard, entered the room.

"We has no beds for strangers," he said, speaking in an aggressive and
loud tone. "Hasn't the wife said so? We don't let out beds here."

"As that is the case, you have no right to have that signpost at the end
of the lane," I retorted. "I am not in a mood to walk eight miles for a
shelter in a country I know nothing about. Cannot you put me up
somehow?"

"I have told the gentleman everything, Sam," said the wife. "He is just
for all the world like young Mr. Wentworth, and not a bit frightened."

The old landlord came up and faced me.

"Look you here," he said, "you stay on at your peril. I don't want you,
nor do the wife. Now is it 'yes' or 'no'?"

"It is 'yes,'" I said.

"There's only one room you can sleep in."

"One room is sufficient."

"It's the one Mr. Wentworth died in. Hadn't you best take up your traps
and be off?"

"No, I shall stay."

"Then there's no more to be said."

"Run, Liz," said the woman, "and light the fire in the parlour."

The girl left the room, and the woman, taking up a candle, said she
would take me to the chamber where I was to sleep. She led me down a
long and narrow passage, and then, opening a door, down two steps into
the most extraordinary-looking room I had ever seen. The walls were
completely circular, covered with a paper of a staring grotesque
pattern. A small iron bedstead projected into the middle of the floor,
which was uncarpeted except for a slip of matting beside it. A cheap
deal wash-hand-stand, a coupl