"The long dreary winter drew on apace. The leaves became sere, and fell, and were whirled in rustling eddies along the hollows of the small woodland paths about the village,—and the bleak north howled on the hill-side, and moaned and soughed through the trees, and round the house,—and the herds began to fold their flocks in the evenings. One night, in particular, was marked in my memory indelibly by what occurred the morning after it. It was late in November, and the weather for several days previous had been rough and boisterous, but on this particular evening it had cleared. The full moon shone brightly as I returned from the county town, with a wallet of wee books for my youngest class, which I had bought there that afternoon. It was eleven at night as I got to the bridge across the stream which ran past the village; I was glouring down over the little parapet wall into the glancing water, that rushed and murmured through below the arch, and listening to the melancholy bleating of the sheep on the hill above me, and to the low bark of the colleys, and the distant shout of the herds, as the last of the stragglers were got within the circular folds, far up on the moor. Again I would look towards the village, where scarce a light twinkled, except in Tam Clink the blacksmith's shop, where every now and then a primrose-coloured jet of flame puffed up, and flashed on the blacksmith's begrimed face and hairy chest, and naked arms, and on wee Pate Clink's bit dirty face and curly pow, as the callant worked at the bellows; but the fire suddenly gaed out, and the sparks flew from a red-hot bar in all directions, under the powerful stroke of the blacksmith himsell, until the hissing iron became of a dull red, and gradually disappeared from my eye altogether. Presently the strokes ceased—the groaning and asthmatic wheezing of the bellows subsided—and the noise of the man locking the door of his small shop showed that the last of the villagers had finished the labours of the day; and I had time to notice that snow was beginning to fall.
"I got home, and let myself in without disturbing my auld father, and slept soundly till daylight next morning.
"There was none of the villagers asteer when I got up. A sprinkling of snow, as already mentioned, had fallen during the night, which had been so calm, that the white veil which covered the dying face of nature was unsoiled and without a rent, over all the level country; and the road through the village was one unbroken sheet of the purest white, unpolluted as yet by a single footstep—what do I say? there was one footprint there, the recollection of which is indelible from my brain, as the mark on Cain's forehead.
"As I opened the door to step forth, I noticed the mark of a man's foot, as if some one had come down the small lane, that ran at right angles with the road, and past the end of the house, towards the little projecting steps in front of the door. 'Well,' thought I—'well—it may have been my father's, or some one of the villagers may have been earlier up than I apprehended;' and I stepped on, wondering in my own mind what made me notice the steps at all. 'But I am a fool, for one does notice the footprints after the first fall of snow of the season with an interest that we cannot always account for,' said I to myself, as I stepped into the path that led to the school, where I was going to light the fire. I again started as I looked down, for I now noticed, to my surprise, that the footprints exactly resembled my own, with the round mark of the ring at the end of my stick-leg distinct in the snow. 'Why, I did not come this way home, did I?' again communed I with myself; 'certainly I did not; and there was no snow when I came from the school, before I set out for the town. How came these footprints here?—what can it mean?' and mechanically I traced them as far as I could, until the mark of the wooden leg suddenly vanished, and was replaced by the print of a boot or shoe, for a few paces farther; when the marks disappeared altogether, as if the person had turned off suddenly through a gap in the hedge. I was a good deal startled at all this—Could I have been walking in my sleep?—This was scarcely credible; I had never done so, and if I had, which I could not believe, how came my shrunk leg to be miraculously straightened on the instant? For whatever it was, man or spirit, it must have stumped along for fifty yards on a leg of flesh, and a tram of wood, and then suddenly have dropped the agency of the latter, and turned sharp into the fields on two feet, such us everyday men wear; besides, the person, whoever he was, wore iron-heeled square-toed boots or shoes; and I saw no mark of my own tackets, or round brogue-like toes.
"I walked on until I came to the steps of the schoolroom, in a brown study, with the crisp new-fallen snow crunching beneath my tread, and I had nearly given a second edition of Doctor Soorock's downfall before I fairly awoke to the routine of this sublunary world, and betook myself to the unromantic occupation of lighting the fire. I sat down and took up the bellows, but it seemed I had forgotten to make use of them; for there I had been cowering by the ingle-cheek near an hour, pondering in my own mind what the footprints could mean, and quite unconscious all this time that the morning, in place of getting lighter, had settled down very dark. The wind had also suddenly risen, and the branches of the auld elm that overshadowed the schoolhouse were groaning and rasping on the ridge of the roof; and Betty Mutchkin's sign, that hung on the opposite side of the road from a long projecting beam, as if it had been a flag, was swinging and creaking on its rusty hinges before the angry gusts, as they tore down the small valley. At length I was startled by the fury with which a hail shower dashed against the window at my lug, utterly demolishing in a minute the sheet of brown paper with which, until the village glazier sobered, and got a pane from Edinburgh, I had battered up the fracture occasioned by Dr Soorock's cane, when he was humbling himself, and bowing down before the golden coronet on auld Earl M——'s carriage.
"'Dear me,' said I, 'what a day! It's but gloomy without, and I'm no sure that it's very cheery within; for there's a weight that has been lang accumulating at my heart, and now it has grown heavy, heavy. The lift will clear, and the spring will come again, and all nature, as if risen from the grave, as we puir deevils hope to do, will resume its primeval beauty; but a seared heart, a blighted soul,'—and I gave a heavy sigh, while the very bellows on my knees seemed suddenly to collapse of themselves, as if in sympathy, and to puff out an echo to my groan.
"I felt a rough shake on the shoulder. 'What are you sitting groaning at there, Dominie?' said my father, who had entered unseen and unheard—'what are you grunting and graning at the fireside on such a morning as this for, Saunders, when you should have had a bit cheery fire in the ingle for the drookit school-callants to dry themselves at, instead of dreaming with the bellows on your knee, and the fire black out?'
"I looked, and it was even so. 'I dinna ken, father, I am ill at ease; but if I am spared'——
"'Nonsense!' quoth the hasty old sutor; 'get up, Saunders, and clap a fresh spunk to the fire, whether you're spared or no, or I'll tak ye siccan a clamhewit with my stick,'——The good old man the next moment, however, saw how it was with me, and relenting said—'but come awa hame like a decent callant, and tak yere breakfast, man; and you will have scrimp time to eat it, let me tell you, for see,'—pulling out an old turnip-shaped horologe, with great steel hands—'it is within the twenty minutes of school-time already.'
"I made an effort, lighted the fire again, and rousing myself, went forth with him towards our dwelling. The snow was fast disappearing under the pelting of a heavy shower of sleet, that had succeeded the hailstorm, and a loud clap of thunder shook the firmament as we arrived at home. I started—'It's no common to hear thunder at this time o' year, father.'