They did not hear him.
He tapped again.
He heard the woman say, "It seems to me, husband, that some one is knocking."
"No," replied the husband.
He tapped a third time.
The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which he opened.
He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan. He wore a huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-horn, and all sorts of objects which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket, caused to bulge out.
He carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened and turned back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare.
He had thick eyelashes, enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of his face like a snout; and besides all this, that air of being on his own ground, which is indescribable.
"Pardon me, sir," said the wayfarer, "Could you, in consideration of payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the garden, in which to sleep?
Tell me; can you? For money?"
"Who are you?" demanded the master of the house.
The man replied:
"I have just come from Puy-Moisson. I have walked all day long.
I have travelled twelve leagues.
Can you?-- if I pay?"
"I would not refuse," said the peasant, "to lodge any respectable man who would pay me.
But why do you not go to the inn?"
"There is no room."
"Bah!