Margaret threw the door open and waited for him to pass in.
"Mother," he cried, when, at the end of the passage, he stood in an open doorway, "I have brought you a lodger!"
The woman who sat at the table looked up, her needle half-drawn through the cloth, and her blue eyes opened so wide that Herman laughed at his mother's surprise.
Mistress Bengel started to her feet in wonder at seeing her son so burdened.
"Who is it?" she exclaimed. "Is he ill?" she asked, before there was time to answer her first question.
"Nay, not ill, but worn out. I will take him upstairs to the empty chamber."
He turned as he spoke, and mounted the stairs. At the top, before he thrust the door open with his foot, he called down to the others:
"Mother, you will find that I have brought home an angel unawares."
He laughed again. Yet he felt that it was no jest. He had watched the stranger, and something told him he was above the common run of men.
When the stranger lay quiet on the bed, sighing contentedly to find himself at rest, and clasping his hands for silent prayer before he slept, Herman turned away and crept down the stairs softly.