Mistress Willis looked at me a minute, as if she would reply, but she came to another conclusion, ceased her clatter, and bustled about to such good advantage that she soon had on the table a plate of smoking hot beef, and some cakes of yellow corn meal, with pats of golden butter. There was also a stone mug of good ale. I gulped down a big drink of it, and, when the flavor of it had mellowed me, and the warmth gone clear down to my toes, I did drink again, this time to the health of Mistress Willis. For, though I like not a woman’s tongue when they talk over much, I know the value of being in their good graces. And so I ate and drank, and ate again, until I felt the cold leave me, and the memory of the biting wind and driving snow of an hour before was forgotten. I leaned back in my chair, and looked all about me, while the fire in the big chimney place flickered and spluttered; the hickory logs smelling like sweet nuts, and cracking with the heat, as a teamster snaps his whip on a frosty morning. I let my eyes take in the room, with the oak beams overhead, blackened by smoke, the heavy tables and chairs, and the clean sanded floor. It was getting on toward night now, and the wind had died out. I was alone in the room, but I could hear Mistress Willis walking about in the apartment overhead, and giving some orders to the servant. I rose from my chair somewhat wearied, wishing that the inn keeper would return, so that I might meet him, and seek my bed. I walked to the window, noting that the moon had risen, and that the snow had ceased. As I looked through the casement I started, and doubted whether my eyes beheld aright, for I saw a sight of more than passing strangeness, and one that, for a time, struck terror to my heart. The snow, which had been as white as a fleecy cloud, was now as red as blood beneath the silver moon! At the same time I saw, coming toward the inn, at top speed, three men who ran on, never once halting to glance behind them. CHAPTER II. OF THE SCARLET SNOW. There was a clatter on the stairs as Mistress Willis came down, her face white as the snow had been. She saw the red mantle from an upper window, and came to stand beside me, with fright in her eyes. Together we watched the three figures, her breath coming like that of one who had run far, her heart thumping against her ribs. For myself, the first start over, I recalled that once before I had seen snow like that. Learned men said small Arctic plants in floating clouds, or tiny insects, had dyed the white flakes crimson. Yet in the town of Salem, that night, that a red shadow of doom portended, was the dread in every heart.