Watercolour compass on upper arm

The snow has sealed the pass, so the carrier from Hallam will not come up before March, and I am writing this at the long table in the Tallow Inn with the ink pot balanced on a folded bill because the cloth is damp from the stove. Mrs Ashdown, the landlady, says the last traveller stuck here for a winter left his boots behind and walked off in his stockings. I have not decided whether to take that as a warning.

You will want to know about the compass. It is still on the mantel above the fire, where I put it the night the lamp boy came in saying the north road was gone. The brass has gone green at the rim and the glass is cracked across the N, so it reads like a bruise. I have spent two evenings deciding which way it points. The needle settles, then drifts, then settles again toward the window, and I cannot tell whether that is the compass or the draught.

Ink has spattered my cuff and freckled the page where I tried to copy the letters off the dial. Orange and violet, like the sky over the moor at dusk, though everything outside is the same grey now. I am keeping the page. Come home by the lower road and bring the good lantern. I will leave the door on the latch.