Luckily the snow had made the falling pretty soft. I soon picked myself up and set about estimating damages. With some difficulty I got the horse out of the harness, and then felt free to inspect the dog-cart. Alas! after the manner of the two-wheel kind whenever a horse thinks fit to fall, one shaft had snapped off like a carrot; so here was I, five miles apparently from anywhere, in the thick of a blinding snow-storm, left standing helpless beside a jaded horse and a broken cart--I should like to know what Brand would have done under the circumstances. As for me, I reflected for some minutes--reflection in a snow-storm is weary work. I reasoned, I believe logically, and at last came to this decision: I would follow the road. If, as I suspected, it was but a cart-track, it would probably soon lead to a habitation of some kind. Anyway I had better try a bit further. I took hold of the wearied horse, and with snow under my feet, snow-flakes whirling round me, and a wind blowing right into my teeth, struggled on. It was a journey! I think I must have been three-quarters of an hour going about a quarter of a mile. I was just beginning to despair, when I saw a welcome gleam of light. I steered toward it, fondly hoping that my troubles were at an end. I found the light stole through the ill-fitting window-shutters of what seemed, so far as I could make out in the darkness, to be a small farm-house. Tying to a gate the knotted reins by which I had been leading the horse, I staggered up to the door and knocked loudly. Upon my honor, until I leaned against that door-post I had no idea how tired I was--until that moment I never suspected that the finding of speedy shelter meant absolutely saving my life. Covered from head to foot with snow, my hat crushed in, I must have been a pitiable object. No answer came to my first summons. It was only after a second and more imperative application of my heel that the door deigned to give way a few inches. Through the aperture a woman's voice asked who was there? "Let me in," I said. "I have missed my way to Midcombe. My horse has fallen. You must give me shelter for the night. Open the door and let me in." "Shelter! You can't get shelter here, mister," said a man's gruff voice. "This ain't an inn, so you'd best be off and go elsewhere." "But I must come in," I said, astonished at such inhospitality; "I can't go a step further. Open the door at once!" "You be hanged," said the man. "'Tis my house, not yours." "But, you fool, I mean to pay you well for your trouble. Don't you know it means death wandering about on such a night as this? Let me in." "You won't come in here," was the brutal and boorish reply. The door closed.