and their little clumps of trees sad with October. But neither you
nor I were out that night. I did not see the poor old man and his
sack until he sank down all of a heap in the lighted inn.

And Yon the blacksmith was there; and the carpenter, Willie Losh; and
Jackers, the postman's son. And they gave him a glass of beer. And
the old man drank it up, still hugging his emeralds.

And at last they asked him what he had in his sack, the question he
clearly dreaded; and he only clasped yet tighter the sodden sack and
mumbled he had potatoes.

"Potatoes," said Yon the blacksmith.

"Potatoes," said Willie Losh.

And when he heard the doubt that was in their voices the old man
shivered and moaned.

"Potatoes, did you say?" said the postman's son. And they all three
rose and tried to peer at the sack that the rain-soaked wayfarer so
zealously sheltered.

And from the old man's fierceness I had said that, had it not been for
that foul night on the roads and the weight he had carried so far and
the fearful winds of October, he had fought with the blacksmith, the
carpenter and the postman's son, all three, till he beat them away
from his sack. And weary and wet as he was he fought them hard.

I should no doubt have interfered; and yet the three men meant no harm