and buggy in front of the school at four o'clock." "Well,"
said the lawyer in getting up, "I would not; you'll run into fog."

And into fog I did run. At this time of the year I had at best only a
little over an hour's start in my race against darkness. I always drove
my horses hard now while daylight lasted; I demanded from them their
very best strength at the start. Then, till we reached the last clear
road over the dam, I spared them as much as I could. I had met up with a
few things in the dark by now, and I had learned, if a difficulty arose,
how much easier it is to cope with it even in failing twilight than by
the gleam of lantern or headlight; for the latter never illumine more
than a limited spot.

So I had turned Bell's corner by the time I hit the fog. I saw it in
front and to the right. It drew a slanting line across the road. There
it stood like a wall. Not a breath seemed to be stirring. The fog,
from a distance, appeared to rise like a cliff, quite smoothly, and it
blotted out the world beyond. When I approached it, I saw that its face
was not so smooth as it had appeared from half a mile back; nor was it
motionless. In fact, it was rolling south and west like a wave of great
viscosity. Though my senses failed to perceive the slightest breath of a
breeze, the fog was brewing and whirling, and huge spheres seemed to be
forming in it, and to roll forward, slowly, and sometimes to recede, as
if they had encountered an obstacle and rebounded clumsily. I had seen
a tidal wave, fifty or more feet high, sweep up the "bore" of a river
at the head of the Bay of Fundy. I was reminded of the sight; but here
everything seemed to proceed in a strangely, weirdly leisurely
way. There was none of that rush, of that hurry about this fog that
characterizes water. Besides there seemed to be no end to the wave
above; it reached up as far as your eye could see--now bulging in, now
out, but always advancing. It was not so slow however, as for the moment
I judged it to be; for I was later on told that it reached the town at
about six o'clock. And here I was, at five, six and a half miles from
its limits as the crow flies.

I had hardly time to take in the details that I have described before I
was enveloped in the folds of the fog. I mean this quite literally, for
I am firmly convinced that an onlooker from behind would have seen the
grey masses fold in like a sheet when I drove against them. It must have
looked as if a drive