In one of the stalls a horse was munching his corn; in the other an old man was lying asleep on the litter.
I stooped and looked at him attentively.

It was a withered, woe-begone face.

The eyebrows were painfully contracted; the mouth was fast set, and drawn down at the corners.
The hollow wrinkled cheeks, and the scanty grizzled hair, told their own tale of some past sorrow or suffering.

He was drawing his breath convulsively when I first looked at him, and in a moment more he began to talk in his sleep.
"Wake up!" I heard him say, in a quick whisper, through his clinched teeth.

"Wake up there! Murder!" He moved one lean arm slowly till it rested over his throat, shuddered a little, and turned on his straw.