n mistaken for almost anything.

"Yes, Joseph," he continued, "that's a fact. There's the noo brown 'oss
now, _it's_ a skittish 'un. And there's Mr Kennedy's gray mare, wot's
a standin' of beside me, she ain't skittish a bit, though she's plenty
of spirit, and wouldn't care hanythink for a five-barred gate. Now, wot
I want to know is, wot's the reason why?"

We fear that the reason why, however interesting it might prove to
naturalists, must remain a profound secret for ever; for just as the
groom was about to entertain Joseph with one of his theories on the
point, Charley Kennedy and Harry Somerville hastily approached.

"Ho, Tom!" exclaimed the former, "have you got the miller's pony for
me?"

"_Why_, no, sir; 'e 'adn't got his shoes on, sir, last night--"

"Oh, bother his shoes!" said Charley, in a voice of great
disappointment. "Why didn't you bring him up without shoes, man, eh?"

"Well, sir, the miller said 'e'd get 'em put on early this mornin', an'
I 'xpect 'e'll be 'ere in 'alf a hour at farthest, sir."

"Oh, very well," replied Charley, much relieved, but still a little
nettled at the bare possibility of being late.--"Come along, Harry;
let's go and meet him. He'll be long enough of coming if we don't go to
poke him up a bit."

"You'd better wait," called out the groom, as the boys hastened away.
"If you go by the river, he'll p'r'aps come by the plains; and if you go
by the plains, he'll p'r'aps come by the river."

Charley and Harry stopped and looked at each other. Then they looked at
the groom, and as their eyes surveyed his solemn, cadaverous
countenance, which seemed a sort of bad caricature of the long visages
of the horses that stood around him, they burst into a simultaneous and
prolonged laugh. "He's a clever old lamp-post," said Harry at last: "we
had better remain, Charley."

"You see," continued Tom Whyte, "the pony's 'oofs is in an 'orrible
state. Last night w'en I seed 'im I said to the miller, says I, `John,
I'll take 'im down to the smith d'rectly.' `Very good,' said John. So
I 'ad 'im down to the smith--"

The remainder of Tom's speech was cut short by one of those unforeseen
operations of the laws of nature which are peculiar to arctic climates.
During the long winter repeated falls of snow cover the housetops with
white mantles upwards of a foot thick, which become gradually thicker
and more consolidated as winter advances. In spring the suddenness of
the thaw loosen