How long I slept I have no idea, but when I opened my eyes it was to find the moon shining down on me from a cloudless heaven; the wind also had died away; it seemed my early fears of a wild night were not to be fulfilled, and for this I was sufficiently grateful.  Now as I lay, blinking up to the moon, I presently noticed that we had come to a standstill and I listened expectantly for the jingle of harness and creak of the wheels to recommence.  “Strange!” said I to myself, after having waited vainly some little time, and wondering what could cause the delay, I sat up and looked about me.  The first object my eyes encountered was a haystack and, beyond that, another, with, a little to one side, a row of barns, and again beyond these, a great, rambling farmhouse.  Evidently the wain had reached its destination, wherever that might be, and the sleepy wagoner, forgetful of my presence, had tumbled off to bed.  The which I thought so excellent an example that I lay down again, and, drawing the loose hay over me, closed my eyes, and once more fell asleep.

My second awakening was gradual.  I at first became conscious of a sound, rising and falling with a certain monotonous regularity, that my drowsy ears could make nothing of.  Little by little, however, the sound developed itself into a somewhat mournful melody or refrain, chanted by a not unmusical voice.  I yawned and, having stretched myself, sat up to look and listen.  And the words of the song were these: 

         “When a man, who muffins cries,
          Cries not, when his father dies,
          ’Tis a proof that he would rather
          Have a muffin than his father.”

The singer was a tall, strapping fellow with a good-tempered face, whose ruddy health was set off by a handsome pair of black whiskers.  As I watched him, he laid aside the pitchfork he had been using, and approached the wagon, but, chancing to look up, his eye met mine, and he stopped: 

“Hulloa!” he exclaimed, breaking short off in the middle of a note, “hulloa!”

“Hallo!” said I.

“W’at be doin’ up theer?”

“I was thinking,” I returned, “that, under certain circumstances, I, for one, could not blame the individual, mentioned in your song, for his passionate attachment to muffins.  At this precise moment a muffin—­or, say, five or six, would be highly acceptable, personally.”

“Be you partial to muffins, then?”

“Yes, indeed,” said I, “more especially seeing I have not broken my fast since midday yesterday.”

“Well, an’ w’at be doin’ in my hay?”

“I have been asleep,” said I.

“Well, an’ what business ‘ave ye got a-sleepin’ an’ a-snorin’ in my hay?”

“I was tired,” said I, “and ’Nature her custom holds, let shame say what it will,’ still—­I do not think I snored.”

“’Ow do I know that—­or you, for that matter?” rejoined the farmer, stroking his glossy whiskers, “hows’ever, if you be quite awake, come on down out o’ my hay.”  As he said this he eyed me with rather a truculent air, likewise he clenched his fist.  Thinking it wisest to appear unconscious of this, I nodded affably, and letting myself down from the hay, was next moment standing beside him.