So little, indeed, was anybody
expected, that the coffee-room waiter--a genteel boy, whose plated
buttons in summer were as close together upon the front of his short
jacket as peas in a pod--now appeared in the back yard,
metamorphosed into the unrecognizable shape of a rough country lad
in corduroys and hobnailed boots, sweeping the snow away, and
talking the local dialect in all its purity, quite oblivious of the
new polite accent he had learned in the hot weather from the well-
behaved visitors. The front door was closed, and, as if to express
still more fully the sealed and chrysalis state of the
establishment, a sand-bag was placed at the bottom to keep out the
insidious snowdrift, the wind setting in directly from that quarter.
The landlord, entering his own parlour, walked to the large fire
which it was absolutely necessary to keep up for his comfort, no
such blaze burning in the coffee-room or elsewhere, and after giving
it a stir returned to a table in the lobby, whereon lay the
visitors' book--now closed and pushed back against the wall. He
carelessly opened it; not a name had been entered there since the
19th of the previous November, and that was only the name of a man
who had arrived on a tricycle, who, indeed, had not been asked to
enter at all.
While he was engaged thus the evening grew darker; but before it was
as yet too dark to distinguish objects upon the road winding round
the back of the cliffs, the landlord perceived a black spot on the
distant white, which speedily enlarged itself and drew near.
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