I spent the morning putting my fortress in order, for the wildness of the weather precluded any thought of outdoor exercise. But, after lunch, the fury of the storm having abated somewhat, I began to cast about for some means to discipline the restless spirit of adventure which was awake in me. The prospect, in my then state of excitement, of a long afternoon of enforced apathy and inaction in my lonely quarters was intolerable. I decided that I would take the road to Market Grazing, and pay a visit to the steward himself, with whom I would still occasionally foregather of an evening in his little band-box of a villa in the High Street. For Comely had married of late years, and had a house of his own and, incidentally, a smiling baggy little wife, who had sat for so long under Mr Pugsley that she had come to have no particular shape or opinions of her own. Yes, Comely, genial and deferential and unsuspicious, would prove an excellent febrifuge in the fever of mind which consumed me. But I was destined never to reach him--never to get beyond the fall of the bank where the little wicket gave upon the road. For there the wind had heaped the snow in a mighty drift, and in endeavouring to negotiate it, I slipped and plunged up to my neck. That was little in itself, had not my feet in sinking encountered some body, soft, and of a texture indescribably different from what they had expected. It was elastic, and potentially human. Fighting for my balance, I groped down, and found a buried man. He was dead, to all appearance--a dark, small, foreign-looking fellow, with closed eyes and a face like wax. His crop of hair and short beard were grey and stark like rime. He was cheaply dressed, but newly, in a suit of coarse tweed, and woollen gloves were on his hands. I discovered this all when I had prized and tugged him out of his deadly burrow, and laid him on his back, and brushed the snow from his clothes and features. My great strength had served me well; but I thought to no profitable end. I was not to guess for a moment what wonderful fatality had guided my steps to this drifted cache, and set my foot on the key to all the mysteries--and at the fruitful moment, too. Another hour, half hour, perhaps, and it had been too late. And in the meantime I thought him gone beyond recovery. Listening and feeling, I could detect no pulse in him nor any sign of life. His teeth, white and regular still, for all his grey hairs, showed in a set grin; his lips were pale violet. I believed him dead.