"The Three Strangers" is a short story by Thomas Hardy, first published in Longman's Magazine and Harper's Weekly in March 1883.

Inside the lonely cottage, nineteen people are gathered in a small room, warming themselves in front of a crackling fire, while outside the storm rages.

The hangman, as representative of the law, calls on the company to form a search party to chase and apprehend the fleeing prisoner.

The stranger explains that he is in fact the escaped prisoner's brother, and was on his way to visit him in his condemned cell when he stopped at the cottage to ask his way.

When he opened the cottage door he saw his own brother sitting in the chimney corner, with his hangman unknowingly jammed in next to him, the two men joined in song.