were not to be heard and seen by any of his
neighbours—that he, had, in fact, like other
dowsie people, his delusions. "We all have
our delusions," quoth the landlord, looking
towards his wife; and, straightway pluming
himself on his own infallible acuteness, he
engaged Pearmaine to sleep on his ground-
floor during the winter season. Then it was
that, by a happy stroke of wit, and as a potent
charm to allure the traveller or scare the
midnight thief, mine host of the Charles in
the Oak Hotel, and—no, not Posting House
(the railway had scratched that off the sign)
—caused to be written in small black capitals
upon its door-post,—"A Night Porter—Always
in Attendance."

I regarded this unhappy night porter,
whenever I passed him in his cupboard,
with a certain awe; and, when I had him up
into my room—he had no awe of anybody
—and sat looking blue, and cold, and
hungry, with his feet upon my fender, and
his knees scorched by the fire, a glass of
punch in one of his long bony hands, and a
great rump-steak in his stomach, he scarcely
seemed to be a man of common flesh and
blood. A shimmer of something more or less
than reason played over his face; and, as I
won upon his confidence, he sometimes made
my flesh creep with the things he said.

He thinks there is plenty of good life in
him for a Night Porter's business, though
(turning up his elbows) his bones are so sharp.
He sleeps in his clothes, and knows when a
step is coming; so that he can spring up at
once, and have the door open as soon as the
bell is touched; or sooner, for the matter of
that. Sometimes people look surprised; and
once, a man who had not rung, took to his
heels and ran. It was supposed that that
man was a London burglar. Knowing that
they can get in easily on winter nights, and
have a light struck, or a kettle made to boil
at any hour by the quick hands of Dowsie
John, belated neighbours often come at strange
hours to the Charles in the Oak; and so the
good fellow conducted a little branch of
business that earnt at least his right to a good
supper all the winter through. The house
and all within it was, indeed, of nights
wholly at his disposal; the entire district
being assured of John's trustworthiness. He
is a man to lie down and die starved upon the
floor of a full larder, if the owner of the larder
does not say to him, Fall to and eat!

Yes, he had seen some curious things, he
says, as a Night Porter. There did come a
thief once—only once—he came under
pretence of being a traveller; but John soon
throttled him. Master came down and
dragged him off; but only in time to prevent
the vagabond from being throttled before
his time. But that was nothing. He would
tell me, as a secret, an adventure that he
often dreamed over again after it happened,
and still dreamed about, and feared he always
should dream about to the end of his days.

One December night, several years ago,
it was bitterly, bitterly cold. It had been
snowing for two days; but it was not snowing
then. The earth was white, and the air was
black, and it was bitterly, bitterly, bitterly
cold. Dowsie John lay in his cupboard, and
was kept awake by the stirring of a cruel
wind among the snow. By and by the wind
fell. There was a dead calm, and John slept
till a sound of voices at a distance—beyond
anybody else's earshot; but his ears were
so very ready—woke him up again.

"God avenge this!" said a man.

"This way to the Charles in the Oak, I
think," said another.

And then one of the two shouted out:
"John Pearmaine, put a light in the window.
We can't see the house."

John's light was on the window-sill, and
the shutter was thrown back in an instant.
They were the voices of two neighbours—
stout young farmers, brothers, who lived
with their father, and had been, as he knew,
to a distant market-town with cattle. They
came slowly, with heavy steps. The candle
sent a ray of light across the road; and,
through the ray, passed at last the arms of
one young man; then, suddenly, the gleam
flashed over the pale, still face of a woman
whom the two were carrying, tenderly,
reverently, dead as she was. They brought her
in with blessings upon Dowsie John's quick
ears.

"Lost in a snow-drift; cold and stiff as
ice. There may be life in her yet. Quick is
the word, Johnny, quick!"

The night-porter dragged his mattress
from its cupboard to the feet of the two
brothers, and they laid the body down upon
it, just within the threshold of the inn. One
brother darted out again, to bring the nearest
doctor to the rescue; and the other, when he
saw that Dowsie John had rushed as matter
of course to the tap in search of brandy,
hastened up-stairs to alarm the house. So,
when John brought his brandy to the corpse,
he and it were alone. In stooping down to
it, he moved aside the shawl, the folds of which
enclosed long strips of snow; and, under
it, saw that there lay fixed in the woman's
rigid arms a cold white baby. The half-witted
man knelt down—he never could tell why—
and picked away a lump of snow that lay
unmelted on its little bosom. "Pretty bird,"
he said, and put his gaunt face down, and
kissed it on the mouth. Then he turned to
the mother with his brandy, and spilt it;
because, suddenly, she opened her large
eyes, and looked at him.

The eyelids crept down over the eyes again,
and covered them. John turned away to fill the
empty glass. At the same moment landlady
and landlord, chambermaid and cook, were
hurrying down stairs, the cook with an armload
of blankets. The body was moved, fires
were lighted, bricks were made hot, the set
teeth of the dead were parted. To no purpose.