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One night there was a wonderful aurora in the sky. The streamers of red and blue light darted hither and thither, chasing each other up to the zenith and down again to the northern horizon with a rapidity and a brilliance which I had never seen before. “There will be a storm soon,” said my post-boy; “one always comes after these lights.”

Next morning the sky was overcast, and the short day was as dark as our twilight. But it was not quite so cold, and I travelled onward as fast as possible. There was a long tract of wild and thinly settled country before me and I wished to get through it before stopping for the night. Unfortunately it happened that two lumber-merchants were travelling the same way and had taken the horses; so I was obliged to wait at the stations until horses were brought from the neighboring farms. This delayed me so much that at seven o’clock in the evening I had still one more station of three Swedish miles before reaching the village where I had intended to spend the night. Now, a Swedish mile is nearly equal to seven English, so that this station was at least twenty miles long.