During this conversation the other visitors had not taken much notice of the stranger, because they were discussing what the fiddler should play next. They were just getting up to start another dance when there was a second knock at the door. At this sound, the stranger turned his back to the door, and seemed very busy trying to light his pipe.

"Come in!" called Shepherd Fennel a second time. In a moment another man entered. He too was a stranger.

This one was very different from the first. There was a more cheerful look about him. He was several years older, with greying hair and a full, reddish face. Under his long wet coat he was wearing a dark grey suit.

"I must ask to rest here for a few minutes, friends," he said, "or I shall be wet to the skin before I reach Casterbridge."

"Make yourself at home, sir," replied Fennel, a little less warmly than when welcoming the first stranger. The cottage was not large, there were not many chairs, and these newcomers brought cold, wet air into the room.

The second visitor took off his coat and hat, and sat down heavily at the table, which the dancers had pushed into the chimney corner. He found himself sitting next to the first stranger, who smiled politely at him and passed him the mug of mead. The second man took it, lifted it to his mouth, and drank without stopping, watched by Mrs Fennel, who was not pleased at this free drinking of her best mead.

"Oh, but you can't stop making this!" cried the man in grey. He took the mug again and drank the last drop. "I love mead, as much as I love going to church on Sundays, or giving money to the poor!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" said the man by the fire, who seemed to enjoy the stranger's little joke.

At last the man in the grey suit put down the mug with a happy sigh. "That's wonderful mead, shepherd!" he said. "I haven't tasted anything as good as that for many years."

"I'm pleased you enjoy it, sir!" replied Shepherd Fennel.

"It's goodish mead," agreed his wife, a little coldly. "Made from our own honey, o'course, and it is trouble enough to make, I can tell ye. But we may not make any more -- honey sells well, and we don't need much mead for ourselves."

The old mead of those days, made with the best honey and the freshest eggs, tasted very strong, but it did not taste as strong as it actually was. Before long, the stranger in grey became very cheerful and red in the face. He made himself comfortable in his chair, and continued the conversation.

"Well, as I say, I'm on my way to Casterbridge," he said.

"Going to start a business, perhaps?" asked the shepherd.

"You don't live there then?" said Shepherd Fennel.

"No, no," said his wife. "It is easy to see that the gentleman is rich, and doesn't need to work at anything."

"Not yet, although I plan to move there soon."

"Rich is not the word for me, madam," replied the man in grey. "I have to work, and I do work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight tonight, I must begin work there at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Yes, hot or cold, rain or snow, I must do my day's work tomorrow."

"Poor man! So, although you look rich and comfortable, your life is harder than ours, is it?" said the shepherd's wife.

"Here's some small mead, sir," offered Mrs Fennel. "We call it small, but it's still made from good honey."

"Well, it's the work that I have to do, that's all. Now I must leave you, friends. But before I go, there's time for one more drink to your baby's health. Only, the mug is empty."

"No," said the stranger. "I prefer to remember the taste of your best mead, thank you."

"Of course you do," said Shepherd Fennel quickly. He went to the dark place under the stairs where the best mead was kept, and filled the mug. His wife followed him and spoke worriedly to him in a low voice.

"Very well, just this time then," she said, looking sadly at the mead. "But who is he, and what kind of work does he do?"

"But he's in our house, my love, and this a miserable wet night. What's a mug of mead more or less?"

"I don't like the look o' the man at all! He's drunk enough for ten men already! Don't give him any more o' the best!"

"I don't know. I'll ask him again."

While the man in grey drank his mead, Fennel asked him again about his work, but the man did not reply at once. Suddenly the first stranger spoke from his seat by the fire.

"Anybody may know what I do -- I work with wheels."

"And anybody may know what I do," said the man in the grey suit, "if they're clever enough to find it out."

There was a short silence, which the shepherd's wife broke by calling for a song. The second mug of mead had made the stranger's face even redder and more cheerful than before, and he offered to sing the first song. This is what he sang:

Work that all the world can see;

Honest shepherds all --

The man in grey drank again from his mug, and sang:

To set the criminals free.

No one spoke, except the man near the fire, who joined in the last part, with a deep, musical voice:

And send them to a far country!

There isn't much I need,

My job is the strangest one,

None of the people in the room understood what the singer meant, except the man near the fire; who continued smoking, and said calmly, "Go on, stranger! Sing on!"

A little piece of rope, and a tall hanging post,

Honest shepherds all --

And send them to a far country!

Now it was clear to everybody in the room that the stranger was answering the shepherd's question in song. They all looked at him, their eyes and mouths wide open in horror.

"Oh, he's the hangman!" they whispered to each other. "He's come to hang that poor clockmaker tomorrow in Casterbridge prison -- the clockmaker who had no work, and whose children had no food, so he stole a sheep, and now he's going to hang for it!"

My customers I tie, and I take them up so high,

And that'll be enough for me!