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IN THE FIRST SNOW.

It was the first snow of the year and winter had begun in earnest. I had been thinking of it as I came down the street under the trees, whose branches were so weighted down with snow that they formed one long arch over the sidewalk, and a greater one over the street. All the posts were capped with snow and were a foot higher than they had been yesterday. It all reminded me somehow of a picture, an old print called "Night in a Russian City" which I had seen somewhere-in the school geography, if I remember well.

And as I stood under the light in Dr. Macpherson's entry kicking the great blobs of frozen slush off my boots, I felt a contented sense of ownership over the still town. The year had died here and only I had been permitted to see it die. The dark, mysterious, splendid spirit of autumn had passed in the heavy gale that had been blowing since morning, and that was even now reeving on the winding-sheet swath on swath. It seemed to me that a trust had been laid upon me too sacred for anyone else to share; and I dreaded the daylight, which must publish the secret to everyone. Tomorrow the early milkman would tell the housemaid of the heavy roads blocked with snow and the fence rails covered everywhere from sight. The children, now safely asleep behind the rattling panes, would welcome it with whoops of joy and ransack the house for last year's boots and tippets, asking each other how Coe's Hill would be, and whether the saw-mill pond would bear. Like enough it would, for the damp snow was frozen solid on my riding coat and I saw in the glass of the door that my beard was white with frost.

I entered the hall and went at once to the doctor's study. I had been his assistant now for two years and had come to love him as I had my own father, and in spite of his well known irascibility he certainly treated me with all the gentleness of one. As I en

tered the study he was sitting at the window watching the arclight swinging on the street corner. He was leaning back in the revolving chair and his iron gray hair was tumbled all about the great dome of his head. I could see only the side of his face which bore the scar--a black shrivelled weal running from the scalp well down upon the neck, taking out the right eye and all but the stump of the ear in its progress. He had once referred to it as the mark of carbolic acid, but had said nothing more about it at the time. Yet in spite of this frightful mutilation the face had about it such a look of rugged, conscious strength as to make me believe him impregnable to fear of any sort.

The latch clicked as I closed the door softly behind me, and I was dumbfounded at what followed. He wheeled in his chair as though he had been shot and his feet came down on the floor with a bang.

"Get out of here, will you-you-you'll spoil my rugs with your cursed snow-you'll-why don't you take off that infernal coat before you come in here-you spook about like a clammy ghost." He got up and began to move things about on the desk nervously. He was apparently making a great effort to regain control over himself but his hands shook and his breath came as though he had been running to the last there was in him. "Go!" he thundered, for I still stood there too much taken aback to move.

I went, wondering what I could have done to stir the old man so and not a little hurt at his roughness. The coat I took off and hung in the hall; it was stili white with snow and dripped slowly upon the floor. Mrs. Ainslie gave me some tea and I plucked up courage to ask what ailed the doctor. She moved the tea-pot to the back of the stove and resumed her seat in the rocker before replying.

"'Tis a graund nicht fer spooks, laddie," she said at length; “a graund nicht fer spooks, an' the doctor's nae himself i' th' first snaw. Year syne an' he waukit th' flure twell mornin' and

wouldna' hear o' bed." She opened the Bible at the place marked by her spectacles and commenced polishing them on her apron. Presently she added: ""Tis nae guid for ony mon tae speir intae th' dark o' the first snaw." Then she went on with the Book of Job, and for an hour I sat listening to the ticking of the kitchen clock till at last I could bear it no longer and went to the study again.

The door was open and the doctor had drawn the leather armchair to the hearth. He was gazing steadily into the fire and had apparently regained his composure.

"You must never do that again, my boy," he said without looking up; "you gave me an ugly turn."

"I had no intention"-I began, but he stopped me.

"Tut-tut, I know it, boy, you've always been a good lad and you meant no harm. You didn't understand," he stopped and fidgeted in his chair; twice he made as if to speak and apparently Then he said almost timidly,

thought better of it. "You wouldn't think me a coward if I told you something?" "I could not," I answered. "It happened a long time ago, and to a friend of mine," he said, looking up at me quickly and then back at the fire. "I wouldn't have it known-ever. No," he added almost to himself, "never." Then after a pause, “It was thirty years ago; then, in a little back-country town in Ohio, and just such a night as this, only with more wind-more wind. The half-witted stableman out at Reiter's tavern by the long bridge was crouching over his stove in the harness-room listening to the ice-cakes breaking on the piers in the river. And as he sat there he thought he heard the whinney of a horse at the foot of the hill; he listened, and then he heard voices shouting or singing, he couldn't tell which for the roaring of the wind. He took his lantern and, shielding it with his hat, peered out of the door down the road. As the voices came nearer he heard the words borne up by the wind.

"Back and forth the devil jumped across the open clay,

They've stole the thing that was given to me to keep forever and

aye,

And twist my tail but I'll pay them back if it take till the Judgment Day."

"Glang!" and then the same thing over again, and the second time he heard a heavy panting and blowing in the dark, and presently a great white horse plunged into the lantern light, followed by a sleigh, in which there were two men. Clouds of steam rose from the horse's flanks and great puffs of it blew from its nostrils, and the men's coats were white with snow. The stableman lifted his lantern above his head calling to them a cheery "Good night!" and one of the men reached out of the sleigh and gave him vicious cuts across the hand, causing him to drop the lantern with a curse. But they never stopped singing and urging the horse; long after they had passed he could hear them singing and keeping time with the words to the pound of the horse's feet on the bridge. Then he went back to his stove muttering and nursing his wounded hand.

The white horse plunged on through the blinding snow for an hour or more and the road turned into a wood. It entered the shadow of the pine trees and the men stopped singing as they sniffed the sweet, heavy odor of the needles. At length the horse stopped before a great gate, and stood pawing and snorting with fear. One man got out slowly and tied the horse, while the other drew from beneath the seat a great black coat and a hat. Then they unlocked the gate and carrying the coat between them disappeared among the pines.

In the course of an hour they reappeared, carrying a third man. He had on the great black coat and hat, but his head rolled so from side to side as they shuffled along with him that the hat fell off from time to time, and one of them had to stop to pick it up; which he did each time with a curse, jamming it on harder to make it stay. The skirts of the long coat dragged in the snow,

and as they passed through the gate the hindermost man tripped on it and fell heavily to the ground with half the burden sprawling atop of him. With a flurry of oaths and prayers he shook himself free and lay groveling in the snow. "O Jim, let's give it up," he cried; "no good will ever come of it."

"Hush, you fool, it's done," returned the other, turning to the horse which had suddenly gone mad with fright. And indeed whenever they approached the sleigh with their burden the horse reared and plunged so they feared it would throw itself, and were forced to put the thing down while they blindfolded the horse. The wind tore aside the black coat as the thing lay there and beat it in the snow till it was white. The inside clothes were of a thin, flimsy material-thin, indeed, for such weather. The beard, which should have been black, was frosted white, and the collar and tie and broad shirt-front were all of one color. There was fresh earth in the creases of the vest and on the well-shined shoes. And about it was a vague odor of tube-roses, which seemed strange in such a place.

The horse was quiet at last, though it sniffed the air uneasily and seemed to take fresh fear at every breath. With much pushing and lifting they got the thing into the sleigh; and then, with one man holding it upright on the middle of the seat with his arm around its neck, and the other driving, they turned about and started home. The snow stopped and the moon came out, and it was bitterly cold. After a long time they saw the lights of Reiter's tavern ahead across the bridge, and hurried along to get something warm, for they were numbed through and through. As they drove into the stable yard they bolstered the thing up with robes so that it would sit alone, put the reins in its hands and called loudly for the stableman. He came with his lantern and stood sullenly by the horse's head; apparently he recognized them, for they made no answer to their offer of a drink. They paid him no more attention and went in.

I don't know how long we stayed in there (the doctor had

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