'Is it still snowing?' asks my wife, who sits opposite to me, her books and work on the table beside her.
'Fast. You can scarcely see a yard before you.'
'Heaven help any poor creature on the moor to-night!' says she.
'Who would venture out? It began snowing before dark, and all the people about know the danger of being benighted on the moor in a snow-storm.'
'Yes. But I have known people frozen to death hereabouts before now.'
My wife is Scotch, and this pleasant house in the Highlands is hers. We are trying a winter in it for the first time, and I find it excessively cold and somewhat dull. Mentally I decide that in future we will only grace it with our presence during the shooting season. Presently I go to the window and look out; it has ceased snowing, and through a rift in the clouds I see a star.
'It is beginning to clear,' I tell my wife, and also inform her that it is past eleven. As she lights her candle at a side-table I hear a whining and scratching at the front-door.
'There is Laddie loose again,' says she. 'Would you let him in, dear?'
I did not like facing the cold wind, but could not refuse to let in the poor animal. Strangely enough, when I opened the door and called him, he wouldn't come. He runs up to the door and looks into my face with dumb entreaty; then he runs back a few steps, looking round to see if I am following; and finally, he takes my coat in his mouth and tries to draw me out.
'Laddie won't come in,' I call out to my wife. 'On the contrary, he seems to want me to go out and have a game of snow-ball with him.'