I went to my unquiet rest early, chiefly to avoid an importunate
reveler in the bar-room, who "wished to put to the stranger a few small
questions," troublesome to answer, that I had not patience to evade.
It was high noon on the following day when I set forth again. The snow
had ceased to fall two hours before, but I wished to give it time to
settle; besides, any tracks would greatly help me over the rough
cross-country road I had to travel. My route-bill enjoined me to call at
a certain house where the lane turned off from the highway, to obtain
further instructions. These were duly given me by the farmer, an elderly
man, with a wild, gray beard, vague, red eyes, and a stumbling
incoherence of speech. He repeatedly professed himself "pure and clear
as the dew of Heaven." These characteristics applied probably to his
principles--patriotic or private; they certainly did not to his
directions, which led me two miles astray, before I had ridden twice
that distance; no trifling error, when you had to struggle back over
steep, broken ground, through drifts fully girth deep.
However, as evening closed in, I "made" Accident--the point where I
ought to have found Shipley. He was a very good guide--when you caught
him--but such a perfect _ignis fatuus_, when once out of sight, that I
was not at all surprised at hearing he had gone on, the night before, to
a farm-house--more safe and secluded, certainly--about sixteen miles
off.
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