It was a barrister’s wig.

“This is a queer business,” thought I; and I laid it on the table opposite me as I went on with my supper.  It was a “gossan” wig, as we call it in our parts; a wig grown yellow and rusty with age and wear.  It looked so sly and wicked as it lay there, and brought back the events of the day so sharply that a queer dread took me of being discovered with it.  I pulled out my pistol, loaded it (they had given me back both the powder and pistol found on me when I was taken), and laid it beside my plate.  This done, I went on with my supper—­it was an excellent cold capon—­and all the time the flute up-stairs kept toot-tootling without stopping, except to change the tune.  It gave me “Hearts of Oak,” “Why, Soldiers, why?” “Like Hermit Poor,” and “Come, Lasses and Lads,” before I had fairly cleared the dish.

“And now,” thought I, “I have had a good supper; but there are still three things to be done.  In the first place I want drink, in the second I want a bed, and in the third I want to thank this kind person, whoever he is, for his hospitality.  I’m not going to begin life No. 2 with housebreaking.”

I rose, slipped the pistol into my tail-pocket, and followed the sound up the ramshackle stairs.  My footsteps made such a racket on their old timbers as fairly to frighten me, but it never disturbed the flute-player.  He had harked back again to “Like Hermit Poor” by this time, and the dolefulness of it was fit to make the dead cry out, but he went whining on until I reached the head of the stairs and struck a rousing knock on the door.

The playing stopped.  “Come in,” said a cheery voice; but it gave me no cheerfulness.  Instead of that, it sent all the comfort of my supper clean out of me, as I opened the door and saw him sitting there.

There he was, the man who had saved my neck that day, and whom most I hated in the world, sitting before a snug fire, with his flute on his knee, a glass of port wine at his elbow, and looking so comfortable, with that knowing light in his grey eyes, that I could have killed him where he sat.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said, just the very least bit surprised and no more.  “Come in.”

I stood in the doorway hesitating.

“Don’t stay letting in that monstrous draught, man; but sit down.  You’ll find the bottle on the table and a glass on the shelf.”

I poured out a glassful and drank it off.  The stuff was rare (I can remember its trick on the tongue to this day), but somehow it did not drive the cold out of my heart.  I took another glass, and sat sipping it and staring from the fire to my companion.

He had taken up the flute again, and was blowing a few deep notes out of it, thoughtfully enough.  He was a small, squarely-built man, with a sharp ruddy face like a frozen pippin, heavy grey eyebrows, and a mouth like a trap when it was not pursed up for that everlasting flute.  As he sat there with his wig off, the crown of his bald head was fringed with an obstinate-looking patch of hair, the colour of a badger’s.  My amazement at finding him here at this hour, and alone, was lost in my hatred of the man as I saw the depths of complacent knowledge in his face.  I felt that I must kill him sooner or later, and the sooner the better.