who also held out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the
rest of the room hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted his
lips for the third verse, but at that moment another knock was
audible upon the door. This time the knock was faint and hesitating.

The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation
toward the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted
his alarmed wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third
time the welcoming words, "Walk in!"

The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat.
He, like those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it
was a short, small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in
a decent suit of dark clothes.

"Can you tell me the way to--" he began; when, gazing round the
room to observe the nature of the company among whom he had fallen,
his eyes lighted on the stranger in cinder gray. It was just at
the instant when the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song
with such a will that he scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced
all whispers and inquiries by bursting into his third verse:

"To-morrow is my working-day,
Simple shepherds all,
To-morrow is a working-day for me;
For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en,
And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!"

The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cup with the singer so
heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in