About six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a white ribbon of road which wound up the narrow vale of a lowland stream. As I followed it, fields gave place to bent, the glen became a plateau, and presently I had reached a kind of pass where a solitary house smoked in the twilight. The road swung over a bridge, and leaning on the parapet was a young man.
He was smoking a long clay pipe and studying the water with spectacled eyes. In his left hand was a small book with a finger marking the place. Slowly he repeated—
As when a Gryphon through the wilderness
With wingèd step, o’er hill and moory dale
Pursues the Arimaspian.
He jumped round as my step rung on the keystone, and I saw a pleasant sunburnt boyish face.
“Good evening to you,” he said gravely. “It’s a fine night for the road.”
The smell of peat smoke and of some savoury roast floated to me from the house.
“Is that place an inn?” I asked.
“At your service,” he said politely. “I am the landlord, sir, and I hope you will stay the night, for to tell you the truth I have had no company for a week.”
I pulled myself up on the parapet of the bridge and filled my pipe. I began to detect an ally.
“You’re young to be an innkeeper,” I said.