And at this Susan the housemaid, who had just come in, giggled, and put her hand over her mouth, and I felt as if my ears had rims of fire.  Would they never have done with their personal allusions?  Mentally I cursed Job and Bill and Topper very heartily, and as heartily wished that my inches were a little less.

Luckily I was not born without a certain sense of humor.  It had deserted me under stress of what I had gone through during the last two days, but when my cavities had been well filled with Martha’s excellent viands, I was suddenly able to see myself as I must appear to others, and I astonished the servants by laying down my knife and fork, leaning back in my chair, and emitting a long ripple of laughter.

“Goodness alive!” exclaimed Martha.  “Giles said a’ was a natural, and I believe a’ spoke true.”

“No, no,” I spluttered.  “My noddle’s sound enough.  I think; ’tis only that—­that I’m overgrown!”

And with that I laughed again, and my merriment was infectious, for the round little cook laughed until she dropped exhausted into a chair, and the housemaid uttered shrill little titters from behind her hands, bending forward at each explosion, opening her hands to take a peep at me, and then “going off,” as they say, again.

In the midst of this hilarity there sounded suddenly a jangling and creaking of wires in the neighborhood of the ceiling, followed by a clang.

“Measter’s bell!” cried Susan, and, smoothing her apron, and settling her countenance to a wonderful demureness and sobriety, the little rascal tripped away.  She was back in a minute.

“Measter wants to see tha,” she said.

I got up and followed her from the room and up the stairs, comfortable in body and mind, for sure, I thought, such cheerfulness was of good augury:  the master of such happy servants could not be a very terrible man.  Susan showed me into a large and well-furnished room, where, though it was summer time, a big fire was crackling merrily in the grate.  On one side of it sat the master in a deep chair, smoking a pipe of tobacco; on the other the kind mistress was knitting.  She smiled at me as I approached, and I knew that she was not thinking of my strange garb.  The master hummed and hawed, as if in embarrassment how to address me; then, in a jovial tone intended to set me at my ease he said: 

“Had a good breakfast?”

I assured him that I had never made such a meal in my life.

“That’s right.  Now, we want you to tell us your story in your own way; but mind, no beating about the bush.”

I had already resolved to tell just so much as was necessary, without naming names, so I began: 

“I was on my way to Bristowe, sir, and two nights ago, being overtaken by the rain, I sought shelter in a decayed barn near the roadside, and slept among some hay.  Before morning three men came in whom I soon discovered from their speech to be poachers.  They found me, robbed me of my money—­not a vast sum—­and forced me to exchange garments with them.”