ce, and it was with some effort that he resisted his alarmed
wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the welcoming
words, 'Walk in!'

The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like
those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a short,
small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark
clothes.

'Can you tell me the way to--?' he began: when, gazing round the room to
observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes
lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when
the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that
he scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced all whispers and inquiries
by bursting into his third verse:-

'To-morrow is my working day,
Simple shepherds all -
To-morrow is a working day for me:
For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en,
And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'

The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so
heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his bass
voice as before:-

'And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'

All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway.
Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests
particularly regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood
before them the picture of abject terror--his knees trembling, his hand
shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he supported himself
rattled audibly: his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the
merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more and he
had turned, closed the door, and fled.

'What a man can it be?' said the shepherd.

The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd
conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to think,
and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and further from
the grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for
the Prince of Darkness himself; till they formed a remote circle, an
empty space of floor being left between them and him -

' . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.'

The room was so silent--though there were more than twenty people in
it--that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the
window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray d