disturbed the heavy stillness of the night. Jacob,
not too well pleased with his mission, shambled
on before in sullen silence, his lantern in his
hand, and his shadow at his feet, I followed,
with my gun over my shoulder, as little inclined
for conversation as himself. My thoughts were
full of my late host. His voice yet rang in my
ears. His eloquence yet held my imagination
captive. I remember to this day, with surprise,
how my over-excited brain retained whole
sentences and parts of sentences, troops of brilliant
images, and fragments of splendid reasoning, in
the very words in which he had uttered them.
Musing thus over what I had heard, and striving
to recal a lost link here and there, I strode
on at the heels of my guide, absorbed and
unobservant. Presently—at the end, as it seemed
to me, of only a few minutes—he came to a
sudden halt, and said:

"Yon's your road. Keep the stone fence to
your right hand, and you can't fail of the way."

"This, then, is the old coach-road?"

"Ay, 'tis the old coach-road."

"And how far do I go, before I reach the
cross-roads?"

"Nigh upon three mile."

I pulled out my purse, and he became more
communicative.

"The road's a fair road enough," said he, " for
foot passengers; but 'twas over steep and narrow
for the northern traffic. You'll mind where the
parapet's broken away, close again the sign-post.
It's never been mended since the accident."

"What accident?"

"Eh, the night mail pitched right over into
the valley below—a gude fifty feet an' more—
just at the worst bit o' road in the whole county."

"Horrible! Were many lives lost?"

"All. Four were found dead, and t'other
two died next morning."

"How long is it since this happened?"

"Just nine year."

"Near the sign-post, you say? I will bear it
in mind. Good night."

"Gude night, sir, and thankee." Jacob
pocketed his half-crown, made a faint pretence
of touching his hat, and trudged back by the
way he had come.

I watched the light of his lantern till it
quite disappeared, and then turned to pursue
my way alone. This was no longer matter of
the slightest difficulty, for, despite the dead
darkness overhead, the line of stone fence
showed distinctly enough against the pale gleam
of the snow. How silent it seemed now, with
only my footsteps to listen to; how silent and
how solitary! A strange disagreeable sense of
loneliness stole over me. I walked faster. I
hummed a fragment of a tune. I cast up
enormous sums in my head, and accumulated them
at compound interest. I did my best, in short,
to forget the startling speculations to which I
had but just been listening, and, to some extent,
I succeeded.

Meanwhile the night air seemed to become
colder and colder, and though I walked fast I
found it impossible to keep myself warm. My
feet were like ice. I lost sensation, in my
hands, and grasped my gun mechanically. I
even breathed with difficulty, as though, instead
of traversing a quiet north country highway, I
were scaling the uppermost heights of some
gigantic Alp. This last symptom became
presently so distressing, that I was forced to stop
for a few minutes, and lean against the stone
fence. As I did so, I chanced to look back
up the road, and there, to my infinite relief,
I saw a distant point of light, like the gleam
of an approaching lantern. I at first
concluded that Jacob had retraced his steps and
followed me; but even as the conjecture
presented itself, a second light flashed into sight—
a light evidently parallel with the first, and
approaching at the same rate of motion. It needed
no second thought to show me that these must
be the carriage-lamps of some private vehicle,
though it seemed strange that any private
vehicle should take a road professedly disused
and dangerous.

There could be no doubt, however, of the fact,
for the lamps grew larger and brighter every
moment, and I even fancied I could already
see the dark outline of the carriage between
them. It was coming up very fast, and quite
noiselessly, the snow being nearly a foot deep
under the wheels.

And now the body of the vehicle became
distinctly visible behind the lamps. It looked
strangely lofty. A sudden suspicion flashed
upon me. Was it possible that I had passed
the cross-roads in the dark without observing
the sign-post, and could this be the very coach
which I had come to meet?

No need to ask myself that question a second
time, for here it came round the bend of the road,
guard and driver, one outside passenger, and
four steaming greys, all wrapped in a soft haze
of light, through which the lamps blazed out,
like a pair of fiery meteors.

I jumped forward, waved my hat, and shouted.
The mail came down at full speed, and passed me.
For a moment I feared that I had not been seen
or heard, but it was only for a moment. The
coachman pulled up; the guard, muffled to the
eyes in capes and comforters, and apparently
sound asleep in the rumble, neither answered
my hail nor made the slightest effort to
dismount; the outside passenger did not even turn
his head. I opened the door for myself, and
looked in. There were but three travellers
inside, so I stepped in, shut the door, slipped into
the vacant corner, and congratulated myself on.
my good fortune.

The atmosphere of the coach seemed, if
possible, colder than that of the outer air, and was
pervaded by a singularly damp and disagreeable
smell. I looked round at my fellow-passengers.
They were all three, men, and all silent. They
did not seem to be asleep, but each leaned back
in his corner of the vehicle, as if absorbed in
his own reflections. I attempted to open a conversation.

"How intensely cold it is to-night," I said,
addressing my opposite neighbour.

He lifted his head, looked at me, but made no reply.