"No matter; what Christian would turn a dog out into this wood to-night ?" and with this he made for the door that led to the voices.

He opened it slowly, and put his head in timidly.

He drew it out abruptly, as if slapped in the face, and recoiled into the rain and darkness.
He had peeped into a large but low room, the middle of which was filled by a huge round stove, or clay oven, that reached to the ceiling; round this, wet clothes were drying-some on lines, and some more compendiously, on rustics.

These latter habiliments, impregnated with the wet of the day, but the dirt of a life, and lined with what another foot traveller in these parts call "rammish clowns," evolved rank vapours and compound odours inexpressible, in steaming clouds.
In one corner was a travelling family, a large one: thence flowed into the common stock the peculiar sickly smell of neglected brats.

Garlic filled up the interstices of the air.