I was afraid she'd catch cold in the opened window, if she was in her nightdress, but I replied in a voice of a siren, "A jackass."
"Can't let ye in--no room for shows here--next town," fell the frozen words on my benumbed ears.
Then the woman sneezed, and closed the window. Mac A'Rony seemed to comprehend the situation, but offered no remedy. I would have covered the three miles to Pittsford, but the donkey was fagged out, and could barely drag his legs. Where were we to find shelter at such a time and place?
Retracing our steps a short distance, I caught the sound of pounding, as of a hammer. Soon I heard the sawing of a board, and the saw's enraged voice when it struck a knot. Saved! I thought, as I walked in the direction whence the sound emanated. The snow lay ten inches deep; old Boreas shook the trees, and whistled round the quivering hovels; and I was so chilled and vexed that, if another person had dared to ask me what kind of a man I was, I would have measured somebody for a coffin.
Finally, I came to the house, through whose window I discerned a lighted candle in a back room. I rapped on the door. The sawing continued; so did my rapping. Then the sawing ceased, and the door was opened by a swarthy, heavy bearded man who extended me a kindly "Good evenin'." I introduced myself, and pleaded my case.
"Come in where it's warm," he said; and following him to the stove, I explained my situation.
"We ain't got much accommodation for ye," he apologized, "but I can't leave ye and yer pet out in the cold. This is my wife," and the man introduced me. Then he censured the landlady of the tavern for not admitting me, saying she ought to have her license revoked, "If you'd been a loafing vagabond and drunkard, she'd taken ye in quick enough," said my sympathetic host; "but as ye was a gentleman she was embarrassed to know how to treat ye." From which I gathered that he did know how, and would prove it. He explained that the front part of the building was a store; the rear portion was divided into two small rooms,--a kitchen and a sleeping room. The second floor was utilized as a hay-loft, wherein was stored Hungarian hay for his horse, which he said he kept "in a shed 'cross the road yonder."