blueberry bushes; bramble thickets were here and there; and where the
land rose a little, in irregular places, young birch woods stood. If the
snow had sprinkled here, as it had upon the hills the night before,
there was no sign of it now. The warm colour of the land seemed to glow
against the dulness of the afternoon, not with the sparkle and
brightness which colour has in sunshine, but with the glow of a sleeping
ember among its ashes. Round the west there was metallic blue colouring
upon the cloud vault. This colouring was not like a light upon the
cloud, it was like a shadow upon it; yet it was not grey, but blue.
Where the long straight road from Turrifs and the long straight road
from the hills crossed each other, and were crossed by the unprotected
railway track with its endless rows of tree-trunks serving as telegraph
poles, the new station stood.

It was merely a small barn, newly built of pinewood, divided into two
rooms--one serving as a store-room for goods, the other as waiting-room,
ticket office, and living-room of the station-master. The
station-master, who was, in fact, master, clerk, and porter in one, was
as new to his surroundings as the little fresh-smelling pinewood house.
He was a young Englishman, and at the first glance it could be seen he
had not long been living in his present place. He had, indeed, not yet
given up shaving himself, and his clothes, although rough, warm, and
suited to his occupation, still suggested, not homespun, but an outfit
bought of a tailor.

It was about four o'clock on that November afternoon when the new
official of the new station looked out at the dark red land and the
bright-tinted cloud. It was intensely cold. The ruts of the roads, which
were not made of logs here, were frozen stiff. The young man stood a
minute at his door with his hands in his pockets, sniffed the frost, and