His heart was sad, and his foot was sore,
When a stranger knocked at the cottager’s door;
With travel faint, as the night fell down,
He had missed his way to the nearest town,
And he prayed for water to quench his thirst,
And he showed his purse as he asked for my first.
The cotter was moved by the stranger’s tale,
He spread the board, and he poured the ale:
“The river,” he said, “flows darkly down
Betwixt your path and the lighted town,