Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's chilling entry is from Raincoaster! The snow. The pure, driven snow. The beautiful snow. The sparkling, seductive snow. The deadly snow. We in Canada know that the snow, the gorgeous and mystical messenger of Winter, can be as fatal as it is stunning. But Hugh Walpole, the largely-forgotten but once-popular writer, was born in New Zealand. Nonetheless, he was educated in England from early childhood, in a series of schools which terrorized the delicate lad, so much so that he expunged all but the most prestigious from his entry in Who's Who. His style nods to Horace Walpole (no relation except in the Gothic and psychological nature of their writing), Nathaniel Hawthorne (particularly in this story), and to his dear (perhaps intimate) friend Henry James. Mannered, tense, subtly building to a climax that seems inexorable but may also be nothing ...