Owing to the scarcity of trains in our valley, the local doctor was to tap the main line some miles away, and meet the great surgeon; and a rich resident was kindly loaning a cherished new car, as the doctor did not consider either of his own motors worthy of the occasion.
But even he was dubious as he looked at the heavy skies. He said he could manage to get the car through eighteen inches of snow; but if it were deeper than that——! I remembered that only a couple of years before I had been snowed up in the cottage with drifts six-foot deep. The outlook wasn’t exactly encouraging.
Such heaps of tragedies seemed possible within the next twenty-four hours. Suppose, for instance, royalty should suddenly develop some malady necessitating arms or legs being amputated without delay——! I simply dared not think about such a calamity; and even though the specialist escaped a royal command, and actually set off to catch the train that was to bring him to our hill-country, there might be an accident; London streets are beset with terrors; I never realised till that moment how many dangers a man must face between Wimpole Street and Paddington Station! But I tried to have faith that all would be well.
I heard a soft step in the room—every step that came near me was softened nowadays. I opened my eyes and saw Abigail beside my bed.
“Please, m’m, do you happen to know if the specialist-doctor takes pepper?” she asked in the half-whisper that she had adopted as her bedroom voice.
“I haven’t the remotest idea,” I said; “but why do you want to know?”
“Because we’ve just smashed the glass pepper-box, and we haven’t another down here. And I can’t exactly put it on the table in a mustard-pot!”
I watched for the snow, the eighteen inches I was dreading; but the wind changed and it didn’t fall. Instead, next morning found us enveloped in a solid fog—the only fog we had had this season. Hills and valleys were blotted out as completely as though they had never existed. The cottage seemed to stand in mid-air, with nothing but grey unoccupied space around it. And it was such a raw, penetrating fog.