dropped the traces, took the bits out of their
mouths, and slipped the feed-bags over their heads. I looked at my
watch, for it was my custom to let them eat for just ten minutes, then
to hook them up again and walk them for another ten before trotting. I
had found that that refreshed them enough to make the remainder of the
trip in excellent shape.

While I was waiting, I stood between the wheels of the buggy, leaning
against the box and staring into the light. It was with something akin
to a start that I realized the direction from which the fog rolled by:
it came from the south! I had, of course, seen that already, but it had
so far not entered my consciousness as a definite observation. It was
this fact that later set me to thinking about the origin of the fog
along the lines which I have indicated above. Again I marvelled at the
density of the mist which somehow seemed greater while we were standing
than while we were driving. I had repeatedly been in the clouds, on
mountainsides, but they seemed light and thin as compared with this.
Finland, Northern Sweden, Canada--no other country which I knew had
anything resembling it. The famous London fogs are different altogether.
These mists, like the mist pools, need the swamp as their mother, I
suppose, and the ice-cool summer night for their nurse...

The time was up. I quickly did what had to be done, and five minutes
later we were on the road again. I watched the horses for a while, and
suddenly I thought once more of that fleeting impression of an eddy in
the lee of the poplar bluff at the "White Range Line House." It was on
the north side of the trees, if it was there at all! The significance of
the fact had escaped me at the time. It again confirmed my observation
of the flow of the fog in both directions. It came from a common centre.
And still there was no breath of air. I had no doubt any longer; it
was not the air that pushed the fog; the floating bubbles, the
infinitesimally small ones as well as those that were quite perceptible,
simply displaced the lighter atmosphere. I wondered what kept these
bubbles apart. Some repellent force with which they were charged?
Something, at any rate, must be preventing them from coalescing into
rain. Maybe it was merely the perfect evenness of their flow, for they
gathered thickly enough on the twigs and the few dried leaves, on any
obstacles in their way. And again I thought of the fact that the mist
had seemed thinner wh