The landlord advanced at that moment to the door.

“My man,” said he, “will take your horse to the stable;” and the fellow who had guided Wogan led the horse off.

“Oh, is he your man?” said Wogan.  “Ah!” And he followed the landlord into the house.

It was not only the sign-board which had been newly painted, for in the narrow passage the landlord stopped Wogan.

“Have a care, sir,” said he; “the walls are wet.  It will be best if you stand still while I go forward and bring a light.”

He went forward in the dark and opened a door at the end of the passage.  A glow of ruddy light came through the doorway, and Wogan caught a glimpse of a brick-floored kitchen and a great open chimney and one or two men on a bench before the fire.  Then the door was again closed.  The closing of the door seemed to Wogan a churlish act.

“The hospitality,” said he to himself, “which plants a man in the road so that a traveller on a rainy night may not miss his bed should at least leave the kitchen door open.  Why should I stay here in the dark?”

Wogan went forward, and from the careful way in which he walked,—­a way so careful and stealthy indeed that his footsteps made no sound,—­it might have been inferred that he believed the floor to be newly painted too.  He had, at all events, no such scruples about the kitchen door, for he seized the handle and flung it open quickly.  He was met at once by a cold draught of wind.  A door opposite and giving onto a yard at the back had been opened at precisely the same moment; and as Wogan stepped quickly in at his door a man stepped quickly out by the door opposite and was lost in the darkness.

“What!  Are you going?” the landlord cried after him as he turned from the fire at which he was lighting a candle.

“Wilhelm has a wife and needs must,” at once said a woman who was reaching down some plates from a dresser.

The landlord turned towards the passage and saw Wogan in the doorway.

“You found your way, sir,” said he, looking at Wogan anxiously.

“Nor are your walls any poorer of paint on that account,” said Wogan as he took his wet cloak and flung it over a chair.

The landlord blew out his candle and busied himself about laying the table.  A great iron pot swung over the fire by a chain, and the lid danced on the top and allowed a savoury odour to escape.  Wogan sat himself down before the fire and his clothes began to steam.

“You laugh at my paint, sir,” said the landlord.  He was a fat, good-humoured-looking man, communicative in his manner as a Boniface should be, and his wife was his very complement.  “You laugh at my paint, but it is, after all, a very important thing.  What is a great lady without her rouge-pot, when you come to think of it?  It is the same with an inn.  It must wear paint if it is to attract attention and make a profit.”

“There is philosophy in the comparison,” said Wogan.