"Good night--good night," returned the traveller, yawning.

The father and daughter disappeared through a door in the corner of the
room. The guest heard them ascend the creaking stairs--all was still.

"Fool that I am," said the traveller to himself, "will nothing teach me
that I am no longer a student at Gottingen, or cure me of these
pedestrian adventures? Had it not been for that girl's big blue eyes, I
should be safe at ------ by this time, if, indeed, the grim father had
not murdered me by the road. However, we'll baulk him yet: another
half-hour, and I am on the moor: we must give him time. And in the
meanwhile here is the poker. At the worst it is but one to one; but the
churl is strongly built."

Although the traveller thus endeavoured to cheer his courage, his heart
beat more loudly than its wont. He kept his eyes stationed on the door
by which the cottagers had vanished, and his hand on the massive poker.

While the stranger was thus employed below, Alice, instead of turning to
her own narrow cell, went into her father's room.

The cottager was seated at the foot of his bed muttering to himself, and
with eyes fixed on the ground.

The girl stood before him, gazing on his face, and with her arms lightly
crossed above her bosom.

"It must be worth twenty guineas," said the host, abruptly to himself.

"What is it to you, father, what the gentleman's watch is worth?"