The Argosy — page 392: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

c™; le = ~~ Pane tMINUITES TO TWELVE: ‘Sh a cold December night, some twenty years ago, when the earth was bound in a black frost and the bitter wind blew strong and shrewdly, I was returning home from spending the evening at a friend’s house, situated some three or four miles out of the town. The sky was so black, the country lanes were so dark, that I was truly thankful when the scattered lights of an outlying suburb began to twinkle-in the distance; and it was with a sigh of relief that I stopped under the first lamp-post I came to and looked at my watch. It was no easy task, for the lamp-glass had a pane broken and the strong wind blew the gas in all directions and almost extinguished it. I read the time at last--three minutes to twelve—and, looking up from my watch-face, I started to see a man standing close opposite me. I had heard nothing of his approach. We looked at each other but for a moment, yet it was time sufficient to imprint his features indelibly on my memory. A tall, shabby man, in a thread- bare, black: frock coat and a seedy tall.hat, his face lantern-jawed and sallow, his eyes sunken and lustreless, his beard long ‘and ill-trimmed. In a tone of elaborate civility he asked me the time, thanked me._ for my answer, and, giving me good-night, passed into the black darkness which seemed,to engulf him like a grave. I turned for a moment to think of his lonely walk in that grim obscurity, and resumed my homeward way, laughing at myself for the start he had given me, and reflecting that the strong wind had blown away the sound of his approach. I thought of him as I sat and smoked my pipe over my fire, and felt a comfortable shudder steal upon me as I imagined him facing the bitter blast in his insufficient clothing. In the course of a week or two the incident—trifling enough, Heaven knows—faded from my memory and I thought no more of it: In those days I was actively engaged in the timber trade, and the course of my business took me a good deal about the county, and brought me largely in contact with the agents of the different noble- men and country gentlemen of the district. With one of these agents who resided near the county town of L——, I had numerous transactions, and I used often to run down to L—— to meet him, _ for the town was only fifteen miles away, and was on a line of railway. It was a dull little hole enough, that only warmed up into life when the militia were out, or the assizes were on. One night I returned from L——, having just made a large pur- chase from my friend the agent, whose master, a sporting nobleman, was reduced to cut down the family timber. When I fell asleep that night I had a very simple but vivid dream. I thought I was standing a SxXIV, | B B COMIC DOOKS.EO©