“I have earned neither food nor sleep, Mrs. Raven,” I said, “but you have given me the one freely, and now I hope you will give me the other, for I sorely need it.”
“Sleep is too fine a thing ever to be earned,” said the sexton; “it must be given and accepted, for it is a necessity. But it would be perilous to use this house as a half-way hostelry—for the repose of a night, that is, merely.”
A wild-looking little black cat jumped on his knee as he spoke. He patted it as one pats a child to make it go to sleep: he seemed to me patting down the sod upon a grave—patting it lovingly, with an inward lullaby.
“Here is one of Mara’s kittens!” he said to his wife: “will you give it something and put it out? she may want it!”
The woman took it from him gently, gave it a little piece of bread, and went out with it, closing the door behind her.
“How then am I to make use of your hospitality?” I asked.
“By accepting it to the full,” he answered.
“I do not understand.”
“In this house no one wakes of himself.”
“Why?”