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 446 thinly on the ground in the cultivated country, but our traveller was not prepared for the quantity he found when he arrived at the borders of the moor. However, he was not dismayed; the track lay well defined before him, for it had been already trodden since the snow fell; so, calculating upon crossing the moor before dark set in, he rode on. But his difficulties began to increase with the wildness of the country, what with the roughness of the path and the snow, he found he could go at little better than a walking pace, and the afternoon of a January day found him about the centre of Dartmoor, with nothing but snow on every side, a leaden sky above him, black and threatening towards the south-east, and a chill wind blowing, that froze his very blood. Presently, even while he was deliberating about proceeding, the snow began to fall thickly, and to drift furiously across his path. He foresaw that the track behind him would become obliterated, and that there was nothing for it but to push on to where some granite walls, looking black against the snow, in the valley beneath him, proclaimed the vicinity of a farm-house; with some little difficulty he traced his way to the house before dark, and there found shelter.

The inmates consisted of three young farmers, their sister, and two labourers; our traveller was introduced to a decent bed-room in which a great turf-fire was blazing, and you may be sure he congratulated himself inwardly with fervid thankfulness upon having fallen upon such hospitable quarters, instead of perishing in the snow as many a man had done in those wild parts. He found his host and hostess civil and obliging people, and after sharing their supper with them at the kitchen table, was not sorry to get to bed. Having arrived in his own room, however, he found it so warm and comfortable that he began to undress in a very leisurely manner, and at the same time to glance curiously at the room and its furniture; the latter was simple enough—an enormous oak-chest, and old cabinet of drawers, and two dilapidated chairs. Syddall began lazily to speculate about these things—where they came from? how they came there? how old they were? The great box especially puzzled him; he could not divine its use, but with some vague idea that it held the family-linen, he dismissed it from his mind, as he thought, for ever.

Whether it was the cider he drank at supper, or what, I know not; but certain it was that Syddall could not sleep; he was restless and feverish, and