miles behind us. Then we asked hospitality at the hut of a charcoal
burner, and got what was to be had. A woman was up and about, but
the man was still asleep, on a straw shake-down, on the clay floor.
The woman seemed uneasy until I explained that we were travelers
and had lost our way and been wandering in the woods all night.
She became talkative, then, and asked if we had heard of the
terrible goings-on at the manor-house of Abblasoure. Yes, we had
heard of them, but what we wanted now was rest and sleep. The
king broke in:

"Sell us the house and take yourselves away, for we be perilous
company, being late come from people that died of the Spotted Death."

It was good of him, but unnecessary. One of the commonest decorations
of the nation was the waffle-iron face. I had early noticed that
the woman and her husband were both so decorated. She made us
entirely welcome, and had no fears; and plainly she was immensely
impressed by the king's proposition; for, of course, it was a good
deal of an event in her life to run across a person of the king's
humble appearance who was ready to buy a man's house for the sake
of a night's lodging. It gave her a large respect for us, and she
strained the lean possibilities of her hovel to the utmost to make
us comfortable.

We slept till far into the afternoon, and then got up hungry enough to
make cotter fare quite palatable to the king, the more particularly
as it was scant in quantity. And also in variety; it consisted
solely of onions, salt, and the national black bread made out of
horse-feed. The woman told us about the affair of the evening
before. At ten or eleven at night, when everybody was in bed,