But when we were inside the door, instead of showing me through
the kitchen to my room, he muttered something, and hurried away;
leaving me to wonder what was amiss with him, and why the
loungers outside, who had listened with all their ears to our
conversation, had come in after us as far as they dared, and were
regarding us with an odd mixture of suspicion and amusement.
The landlord remained long away, and seemed, from sounds that
came to my ears, to be talking with someone in a distant room.
At length, however, he returned, bearing a candle and followed by
a serving-man. I asked him roughly why he had been so long, and
began to rate him; but he took the words out of my mouth by his
humility, and going before me through the kitchen--where his wife
and two or three maids who were about the fire stopped to look at
us, with the basting spoons in their hands--he opened a door
which led again into the outer air.
"It is across the yard," he said apologetically, as he went
before, and opening a second door, stood aside for us to enter.
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