ess reason: and nobody is unduly deferential
even to him.

The good women in the cluster of cottages down the lane waved their
hands as I passed, and a couple of maidens of tender years, one fair,
the other with raven locks, ran out and seized each an arm, and
escorted me a hundred yards along my way.

I sat on the bridge for a while at the foot of the hill, and it may
have been the network of trees in the little wood which hid from my
eyes the approaching storm. For with the suddenness of a panther it
sprang upon me. There had been a fairly stiff breeze at my back, which
had helped me along famously, taking toll of my ears for its fee, but
now, as if its playful humour had been changed to madness, it lashed me
mercilessly with knotted whips of frozen rain.

Expecting every minute to reach the shelter of a farm I hurried
forward, whilst the storm howled and raged behind and about me. It was
well for me that the storm was at my back, for my face was entirely
unprotected and the sleet was driven past me in straight, almost
horizontal lines, which obliterated the landscape in a moment, and
stung my neck so that I could have cried with pain. When I had rounded
the bend and climbed the stiff ascent my plight was worse. There was
no protection of any kind and my face suffered so terribly that I began
to be alarmed. To add to my difficulties every landmark had been
blotted out, and the road itself was becoming indistinguishable from
the low-lying edge of moor over which it wound.

Like ten thousand shrouded demons let loose to work destruction the
wind hissed and shrieked and roared, and tore across my path with a
force I could scarcely resist. Ten minutes after its commencement I
was treading ankle-deep in snow, and I could see that drifts were
beginning to form where the road had been brought below the level of
the rising and lumpy moor. I would have given much to have been
sitting by Mother Hubbard's side, listening to the click of the
needles, but I was indeed thankful that she had not accompanied me.

After the first sensation of alarm and dismay the novelty of the
situation began to appeal to me. One can get accustomed even to being
thrashed by the genii of the air, and I became conscious of a certain
exhilaration which was almost pleasant, even whilst I was ardently
longing for the sight of a friendly roof.

I know now that I missed the broad road, and took a narrower one which
sloped down at an acute an