It Happened That About Noon That Day I
Planned To Pass The Night At A Village Where, As I Was
Informed at a small country town I had rested in, there was a
nice inn - "The Fox and Grapes" - to
Put up at, but when I
arrived, tired and hungry, I was told that I could not have a
bed and that the only thing to do was to try Norton, which
also boasted an inn. It was hard to have to turn some two or
three miles out of my road at that late hour on a chance of a
shelter for the night, but there was nothing else to do, so on
to Norton I went with heavy steps, and arrived a little after
sunset, more tired and hungry than ever, only to be told at
the inn that they had no accommodation for me, that their one
spare room had been engaged! "What am I to do, then?" I
demanded of the landlord. "Beyond this village I cannot go
to-night - do you want me to go out and sleep under a hedge?"
He called his spouse, and after some conversation they said
the village baker might be able to put me up, as he had a
spare bedroom in his house. So to the baker's I went, and
found it a queer, ramshackle old place, standing a little back
from the village street in a garden and green plot with a few
fruit trees growing on it.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 123 of 298
Words from 33417 to 33667
of 82198
