I wouldn't have taken you in for all the money
you've got about you if I'd known your dreaming, screeching ways
beforehand. Look at the bed. Where's the cut of a knife in it?
Look at the window--is the lock bursted? Look at the door (which
I heard you fasten yourself)--is it broke in? A murdering woman
with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
Isaac answered not a word. He huddled on his clothes, and then
they went downstairs together.
"Nigh on twenty minutes past two!" said the landlord, as they
passed the clock. "A nice time in the morning to frighten honest
people out of their wits!"
Isaac paid his bill, and the landlord let him out at the front
door, asking, with a grin of contempt, as he undid the strong
fastenings, whether "the murdering woman got in that way."
They parted without a word on either side. The rain had ceased,
but the night was dark, and the wind bleaker than ever. Little
did the darkness, or the cold, or the uncertainty about the way
home matter to Isaac. If he had been turned out into a wilderness
in a thunder-storm it would have been a relief after what he had
suffered in the bedroom of the inn.
What was the fair woman with the knife? The creature of a dream,
or that other creature from the unknown world called among men by
the name of ghost? He could make nothing of the mystery--had made
nothing of it, even when it was midday on Wednesday, and when he
stood, at last, after many times missing his road, once more on
the doorstep of home.
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