Real musicians, however, were freely admitted, and often generously rewarded.
The lodge-keeper in question (an old fellow with a wooden leg) had not been able to make the two vagabonds in question understand this.

They insisted on coming in, and the lodge-keeper said that if I had not appeared he verily believed they would have entered in spite of him.

They seemed to know very little English; but as I knew a little Italian, which I eked out with a few significant gestures, I speedily enlightened them, and they sheered off, looking daggers, and muttering what sounded like curses.
The man who carried the organ was of the usual type--short, thick-set, hairy, and unwashed.

His companion, rather to my surprise, was just the reverse--tall, shapely, well set up, and comparatively well clad; and with his dark eyes, black mustache, broad-brimmed hat, and red tie loosely knotted round his brawny throat, he looked decidedly picturesque.
On the following day, as I was going to the stables (which were a few hundred yards below the house) I found my picturesque Italian in the back garden, singing a barcarole to the accompaniment of a guitar.

But as he had complied with the condition of which I had informed him, I made no objection.