So I walked straight into the courtyard, which backs upon the church, and found there a large man with considerable girth, a square, honest face and kindly eyes. He was wearing a cap, and wearing it in a fine rakish way too. His appearance gave me the impression that his wife had tossed the cap at him and failed to drop it on his head squarely, but had landed it in a lopsided manner, and then our friend had walked off without thinking anything more about it. He was singing a song to himself and staring at a pile of bundles of straw. He looked up and nodded good-humouredly.
"Looks like rain!" said I.
"Aw 'es, tu be sure, now you come to mention it. I dawnt think rain's far off."
"Can you tell me," said I, "if I can get a meal and a bed at this inn?"
"What you like," returned the man, with a quick tilt of his head, which drew my eyes with a kind of fascination to his ill-balanced cap, "but as I've nothing to do with the place I should ask the landlord avore me."
"Ah, to be sure," said I. "Sorry to trouble you. I thought you might be the landlord."
The man stopped singing his song to stare at me wide-eyed.
"Well, I beant; but it's a fine thing to be a landlord, with barrels o' beer down 'ouze and money in the bank."
"Then may I ask what trade you follow," said I, "and why you study that straw so intently?"