It was indeed a wild night. The wind was rushing from the north,
full of sharp stinging pellicles, something between snow-flakes and
hail-stones. Down the wide village street it came right in their
faces. Through it, as through a thin shifting sheet, they saw on
both sides the flickering lights of the many homes, but before them
lay darkness, and the moor, a chaos, a carnival of wind and snow.
Worst of all the snow on the road was not BINDING, and their feet
felt as if walking on sand. As long as the footing is good, one can
get on even in the face of a northerly storm; but to heave with a
shifting fulcrum is hard. Nevertheless Cosmo, beholding with his
mind's eye the wide waste around him, rejoiced; invisible through
the snow, it was not the less a presence, and his young heart
rushed to the contest. There was no fear of ghosts in such a storm!
The ghosts might be there, but there was no time to heed them, and
that was as good as their absence--perhaps better, if we knew all.
"Bide a wee, Cosmo," cried Agnes, and leaving him in the middle of
the street where they were walking, she ran across to one of the
houses, and entered--lifting the latch without ceremony. No
neighbour troubled another to come and open the door; if there was
no one at home, the key in the lock outside showed it.
Cosmo turned his back to the wind, and stood waiting. From the door
which Aggie opened, came through the wind and snow the sound of the
shoemaker's hammer on his lapstone.
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