It was indeed a wild night. The wind was rushing from the north, full of sharp stinging pellicles, something between snow-flakes and hail-stones. Down the wide village street it came right in their faces. Through it, as through a thin shifting sheet, they saw on both sides the flickering lights of the many homes, but before them lay darkness, and the moor, a chaos, a carnival of wind and snow. Worst of all the snow on the road was not _binding_, and their feet felt as if walking on sand. As long as the footing is good, one can get on even in the face of a northerly storm; but to heave with a shifting fulcrum is hard. Nevertheless Cosmo, beholding with his mind’s eye the wide waste around him, rejoiced; invisible through the snow, it was not the less a presence, and his young heart rushed to the contest. There was no fear of ghosts in such a storm! The ghosts might be there, but there was no time to heed them, and that was as good as their absence--perhaps better, if we knew all. “Bide a wee, Cosmo,” cried Agnes, and leaving him in the middle of the street where they were walking, she ran across to one of the houses, and entered--lifting the latch without ceremony. No neighbour troubled another to come and open the door; if there was no one at home, the key in the lock outside showed it. Cosmo turned his back to the wind, and stood waiting. From the door which Aggie opened, came through the wind and snow the sound of the shoemaker’s hammer on his lapstone. “Cud ye spare the mistress for an hoor, or maybe twa an’ a half, to haud Grannie company, John Nauchty?” said Agnes. “Weel that,” answered the _sutor_, hammering away. He intended no reflection on the bond that bound the mistress and himself. “I dinna see her,” said Aggie. “She’ll be in in a minute. She’s run ower the ro’d to get a doup o’ a can’le,” returned the man. “Gien she dinna gae speedier, she’ll hae to licht it to fin’ her ain door,” said Agnes merrily, to whom the approaching fight with the elements was as welcome as to Cosmo. She had made up her mind to go with him all the way, let him protest as he might. “Ow na! she’ll hearken, an’ hear the hemmer,” replied the shoemaker. “Weel, tak the key, an’ ye winna forget, John?” said Aggie, laying the key amongst his tools. “Grannie’s lyin’ there her lee-lane, an’ gien the hoose was to tak fire, what wad come o’ her?” “Guid forbid onybody sud forget Grannie!” rejoined the man heartily; “but fire wad hae a sma’ chance the nicht.” Agnes thanked and left him. All the time he had not missed a single stroke of his hammer on the ben-leather between it and his lapstone. When she rejoined Cosmo, where he stood leaning his back against the wind in the middle of the road, “Come nae farther, Aggie,” he said. “It’s an ill nicht, an’ grows waur. There’s nae guid in ’t naither, for we winna hear ane anither speyk ohn stoppit, an’ turnt oor backs til ’t. Gang to yer Grannie; she’ll be feart aboot ye.”