t did not commit
himself, and it was cautious.

"I think it will be a fine day of its kind," said the lady, "and we'll
drive to Cockhoolet. Have the carriage ready at ten."

"If we dinna wun a' the gate, we can but turn again," John thought as
he retired to execute his orders.

"It is not looking so well as it did in the morning," said Miss
Adamson as they entered the carriage, "but if we have an adventure we
shall be the better for it."

"We shall have no such luck," said Lady Arthur: "what ever happens out
of the usual way now? There used to be glorious snowstorms long ago,
but the winters have lost their rigor, and there are no such long
summer days now as there were when I was young. Neither persons nor
things have that spirit in them they used to have;" and she smiled,
catching in thought the fact that to the young the world is still as
fresh and fair as it has appeared to all the successive generations it
has carried on its surface.

"This is a wiselike expedition," said Thomas to John.

"Ay," said John, "I'm mista'en if this is no a day that'll be heard
tell o' yet;" and they mounted to their respective places and started.

The sky was very grim and the wind had been gradually rising. The
three ladies sat each in her corner, saying little, and feeling that
this drive was certainly a means to an end, and not an end in itself.
Their pace had not been very quick from the first, but it became
gradually slower, and the hard dry snow was drifting past the windows
in clouds. At last they came to a stand altogether, and John appeared
at the window like a white column and said, "My leddy, we'll hae to
stop here."

"Stop! why?"

"Because it's impossible to wun ony farrer."

"Nonsense! There's no such word as impossible."

"The beasts might maybe get through, but they wad leave the carriage
ahint them."

"Let me out to look about," said Lady Arthur.

"Ye had better bide where ye are," said John: "there's naething to be
seen, and ye wad but get yersel' a' snaw. We might try to gang back
the road we cam."

"Decidedly not," said Lady Arthur, whose spirits were rising to the
occasion: "we can't be far from Cockhoolet here?"

"Between twa and three mile," said John dryly.

"We'll get out and walk," said her ladyship, looking at the other
ladies.

"Wi' the wind in yer teeth, and sinking up to yer cuits at every step?
Ye wad either be blawn ower the muir like a feather, or planted amang
the snaw like Lot's