Hicup looked attentively at his wife, and then at the brandy bottle, which stood near her in a corner cupboard.
"So you have been at the brandy again, you old witch, and half-emptied the bottle!" said our host in a rage, seizing his stick. "Wait, I will give you"----. A loud knocking at the window-shutter interrupted both the sentence and the intended castigation.
"Who's there?" he bawled out.
"A poor woman, who begs a lodging for the night," was the answer.
"A poor woman," continued Hicup sullenly. "Such guests are always to be had; you had better go up to the other inn, you will be more comfortable there than with us."
Dame Hicup, to whom this interruption was most opportune, having a due regard for her bones, became, all of a sudden, compassionate. "He who sends the poor from his door," she began, "to him Heaven will not send the rich;" and, without waiting for the assent of her husband, she stepped across the room, and opened the door. A woman, poorly clad, with a large handkerchief hanging behind her head, and a basket on her back, stood before her.
"Come in, come in," said Dame Hicup invitingly, bringing her into the room.
"Have you a passport?" gruffly demanded the landlord.
"Yes; here it is;" and the woman drew from her pocket a piece of folded paper, which she handed to the master of the inn, who, without looking at it, said, "Where are you going?"
"To Neiderhaslich."