After a long wrangle it seemed that the women were to have their way.
Again the door-bolts were drawn, again the door opened by the old man,
and this time opened wide. With bows lower than the occasion demanded,
Prosper was invited to be pleased to enter. He saw to his horse first,
and made what provision he could for him in an outhouse. Then he
stooped his head and entered the cottage.

He came directly into a bare room, which was, you may say, crouched
under a pent of turves and ling, and stank very vilely. The floor was
of beaten clay, like the walls; for furniture it had a table and
bench. Sooty cobwebs dripped from the joists, and great spiders ran
nimbly over them; there were no beds, but on a heap of rotting skins
in one corner two rats were busy, and in another were some dry leaves
and bracken. There was no chimney either, though there was a peat fire
smouldering in what you must call the hearth. The place was dense with
the fog of it; it was some time, therefore, before Prosper could leave
blinking and fit his eyes to see the occupants of his lodging....
Isoult, he saw, stood in the middle of the room leaning on the table
with both her hands; her bead was hanging, and her hair veiled all her
face. Near her, also standing, was the old man--a sturdy knowing old
villain, with a world of cunning and mischief in his pair of pig's
eyes. His scanty hair, his beard, were white; his eyebrows were white
and altogether monstrous. He blinked at Prosper, but said nothing. The
third was a woman, infinitely old as it seemed, crouched over the
fired peats with her back to the room. She never looked up at all, but
muttered and sighed vainly to herself and warmed her hands. Lastly, in
a round-backed chair, cross-legged, twirling his thumbs, twinkling
with comfortable repletion, sat Prosper's friend of the road, Brother
Bonaccord of Lucca.