Solomon Gursky was here [antikvár]

ONE One morning—during the record cold speli of 1851 — a big menacing black bird, the likes of which had never been seen before, soared over the crude mill town of Magog, swooping low again and again. Luther Hollis brought down the bird with his Springfield. Then the men saw a team of twelve yapping dogs emerging out of the wind and swirling snows of the frozen Laké Memphremagog. The dogs were puliing a long, heavily laden sled at the stern of which stood Ephraim Gursky, a small fierce hooded man cracking a whip. Ephraim pulled close to the shore and began to trudge up and down, searching the skies, an inhuman call, somé sort of sad clacking nőise, at once abandoned yet charged with hope, coming from the back of his throat. In spite of the tree-cracking cold a number of curious gathered on the shore. They had come not so much to greet Ephraim as to estabíish whether or not he was an apparition. Ephraim was wearing what appeared to be sealskins and, on closer inspection, a clerical collar as well. Four fringes hung from the borders of his outermost skin, each fringe made up of twelve silken strands. Frost clung to his eyelids and nostrils. One cheek had been bitten black by the wind. His inky black beard was snarled with ícicles. "Crawling with white snakes/?