n the ice of the lake he was no longer accompanied
by the grey length of the log-fences. This road across the lake had been
well tracked after former snowfalls, and so the untrodden snow rose
high on either side; branches of fir and cedar, stuck at short intervals
in these snow walls, marked out the way. The pony ceased to trot. The
driver was only astonished that this cessation of speed had not come
sooner.

Standing up in his sleigh and looking round he could see two or three
other sleighs travelling across nearer the village. The village he could
no longer see, scarcely even the hill, nor was there any communication
over the deep untrodden snow between his road and that other on which
there were travellers.

Another hour passed, and now, as he went on slowly up the length of the
lake, all sound and sight of other sleighs were lost. The cloud was not
dark; the snow fell in such small flakes that it did not seem that even
an infinite number of them could bury the world; the wind drifting them
together, though strong, was not boisterous; the March evening did not
soon darken: and yet there was something in the determined action of
cloud and wind and snow, making the certainty that night would come with
no abatement, which caused even the inexperienced Englishman to perceive
that he was passing into the midst of a heavy storm.

As is frequently the case with travellers, he had certain directions
concerning the road which appeared to be adequate until he was actually
confronted with that small portion of the earth's surface to which it
was necessary to apply them. He was to take the first road which crossed
his, running from side to side of the lake; but the first cross track
appeared to him so narrow and so deeply drifted that he did not believe
it to be the public road he sought. 'Some farm, hidden in the level
maple bush just seen through the falling snow, sends an occasional cart
to the village by this by-path,' so he reassured himself; and the pony,
who had spied the track first and paused to have time to consider it, at
the word of command obediently plodded its continuous route. A quarter
of a mile farther on the traveller saw something on the road in front;
as the sound of his pony's jangling bells approached, a horse lifted its
head and shook its own bells. The horse, the sleigh which it ought to
have been drawing, were standing still, full in the centre of the road.
The first thought, that it was cheering to c