"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.