I could not see the cottage, but I knew that my little
girl lay sleeping in her cosy bed, and that a young woman
was sitting there in the dark, her face glued to the
windowpane, to be ready with a lantern which burned in
the kitchen whenever I might pull up between school and
house. And there, no doubt, she had been sitting for a
long while already; and there she was destined to sit
during the winter that came, on Friday nights--full often
for many and many an hour--full often till midnight--and
sometimes longer...




TWO
Fog

Peter took me north, alone, on six successive trips. We
had rain, we had snow, we had mud, and hard-frozen ground.
It took us four, it took us six, it took us on one
occasion--after a heavy October snowfall--nearly eleven
hours to make the trip. That last adventure decided me.
It was unavoidable that I should buy a second horse. The
roads were getting too heavy for single driving over such
a distance. This time I wanted a horse that I could sell
in the spring to a farmer for any kind of work on the
land. I looked around for a while. Then I found Dan. He
was a sorrel, with some Clyde blood in him. He looked a
veritable skate of a horse. You could lay your fingers
between his ribs, and he played out on the first trip I