he going is rough
there with stumps and stones. I could not see the cottage, it stood
behind the school. But the school I saw clearly outlined against the
dark blue, star-spangled sky, for it stands on a high gravel ridge. And
in the most friendly and welcoming way it looked with its single eye
across at the nocturnal guest.

I could not see the cottage, but I knew that my little girl lay sleeping
in her cosy bed, and that a young woman was sitting there in the dark,
her face glued to the windowpane, to be ready with a lantern which
burned in the kitchen whenever I might pull up between school and house.
And there, no doubt, she had been sitting for a long while already; and
there she was destined to sit during the winter that came, on
Friday nights--full often for many and many an hour--full often till
midnight--and sometimes longer...

TWO. Fog

Peter took me north, alone, on six successive trips. We had rain, we had
snow, we had mud, and hard-frozen ground. It took us four, it took us
six, it took us on one occasion--after a heavy October snowfall--nearly
eleven hours to make the trip. That last adventure decided me. It was
unavoidable that I should buy a second horse. The roads were getting
too heavy for single driving over such a distance. This time I wanted a
horse that I could sell in the spring to a farmer for any kind of work
on the land. I looked around for a while. Then I found Dan. He was a
sorrel, with some Clyde blood in him. He looked a veritable skate of a
horse. You could lay your fingers between his ribs, and he played out
on the first trip I ever made with this newly-assembled, strange-looking
team. But when I look back at that winter, I cannot but say that again
I chose well. After I had fed him up, he did the work in a thoroughly
satisfactory manner, and he learnt to know the road far better than
Peter. Several times I should have been lost without his unerring road
sense. In the spring I sold him for exactly what I had paid; the farmer
who bought him has him to this very day [Footnote: Spring, 1919.] and
says he never had a better horse.

I also had found that on moonless nights it was indispensable for me to
have lights along. Now maybe the reader has already noticed that I am
rather a thorough-going person. For a week I worked every day after four
at my buggy and finally had a blacksmith put on the finishing touches.
What I rigged up, was as follows: On the front springs I fastened with