The closing of the door seemed to Wogan a churlish act.
"The hospitality," said he to himself, "which plants a man in the road so that a traveller on a rainy night may not miss his bed should at least leave the kitchen door open.

Why should I stay here in the dark ?" Wogan went forward, and from the careful way in which he walked,--a way so careful and stealthy indeed that his footsteps made no sound,--it might have been inferred that he believed the floor to be newly painted too.

He had, at all events, no such scruples about the kitchen door, for he seized the handle and flung it open quickly.

He was met at once by a cold draught of wind.

A door opposite and giving onto a yard at the back had been opened at precisely the same moment; and as Wogan stepped quickly in at his door a man stepped quickly out by the door opposite and was lost in the darkness.
"What! Are you going ?" the landlord cried after him as he turned from the fire at which he was lighting a candle.
"Wilhelm has a wife and needs must," at once said a woman who was reaching down some plates from a dresser.
The landlord turned towards the passage and saw Wogan in the doorway.
"You found your way, sir," said he, looking at Wogan anxiously.
"Nor are your walls any poorer of paint on that account," said Wogan as he took his wet cloak and flung it over a chair.
The landlord blew out his candle and busied himself about laying the table.