seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver had
said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated. I had said I would see
the deserted village, so on I went, and presently came on a wide stretch
of open country, shut in by hills all around. Their sides were covered
with trees which spread down to the plain, dotting, in clumps, the
gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and there. I followed with
my eye the winding of the road, and saw that it curved close to one of
the densest of these clumps and was lost behind it.

As I looked there came a cold shiver in the air, and the snow began to
fall. I thought of the miles and miles of bleak country I had passed,
and then hurried on to seek the shelter of the wood in front. Darker and
darker grew the sky, and faster and heavier fell the snow, till the
earth before and around me was a glistening white carpet the further
edge of which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was here but crude,
and when on the level its boundaries were not so marked, as when it
passed through the cuttings; and in a little while I found that I must
have strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard surface, and my
feet sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind grew stronger and
blew with ever increasing force, till I was fain to run before it. The
air became icy-cold, and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The
snow was now falling so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid
eddies that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now and then the
heavens were torn asunder by vivid lightning, and in the flashes I could
see ahead of me a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress all
heavily coated with snow.

I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there, in comparative
silence, I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently the
blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the night