It was almost more like a London fog than an
honest darkness of the atmosphere, bred in its own bounds. But while the
light lasted, the snow did not fall. I went about the house doing what I
could find to do, and wondering John did not come.
His horse had again fallen lame--this time through an accident which made
it necessary for him to stay with the poor animal long after his usual
time of starting to come to me. When he did start, it was on foot, with
the short winter afternoon closing in. But he knew the moor by this time
nearly as well as I did.
It was quite dark when he drew near the house, which he generally entered
through the wilderness and the garden. The snow had begun at last, and
was coming down in deliberate earnest. It would lie feet deep over the
moor before the morning! He was thinking what a dreary tramp home it
would be by the road--for the wind was threatening to wake, and in a
snow-wind the moor was a place to be avoided--when he struck his foot
against something soft, in the path his own feet had worn to the
wilderness, and fell over it. A groan followed, and John rose with the
miserable feeling of having hurt some creature. Dropping on his knees to
discover what it was, he found a man almost covered with snow, and nearly
insensible. He swept the snow off him, contrived to get him on his back,
and brought him round to the door, for the fence would have been awkward
to cross with him.
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