 CHAPTER 42 THE GREAT WINTER It must have snowed most wonderfully to have made that depth of covering in about 8 hours. For one of Master Stickel's men, who had been out all the night, said that no snow began to fall until nearly midnight. And here it was, blocking up the doors, stopping the ways, and the water courses, and making it very much worse to walk than in a salt pit newly used. However, we trudged along in a line, our first, and the other men after me, trying to keep my track, but finding legs and strength not up to it. Most of all, John Fry was groaning, certain that his time was come, and sending messages to his wife and blessings to his children, for all this time it was snowing harder than it ever had snowed before. So far as man might guess at it, and the leading depth of the sky came down like a mind turned upside down on us. Not that the flakes were so very large, for I have seen much larger flakes in a shower of march, while so in peace, but that there was no room between them, neither any relaxing, nor any change of direction. Much like a good and faithful dog, followed us very cheerfully, leaping out of the depth, which took him over his back and ears already, even in the level places, while in the drifts, he might have snuck to any distance out of sight, and never found his way up again. However, we helped him now and then, especially through the gaps and gateways, and so after a deal of flondering, some laughter, and a little swearing, we came all safe to the lower meadow where most of our flock was hurtled. But before, there was no flock at all, none, I mean to be seen anywhere, only at one corner of the field by the eastern end where the snow drove in a great white billow as high as a barn and as broad as a house. This great drift was rolling and curling beneath the violent blast, turfling and combing with rustling swirls, and carved, as in patterns of cornice, where the grooving chisel of the wind swept round. Ever and again, the tempest snatched little whiffs from the channel edges, twirling them around and made them dance over the chime of the monster pile. Then let them lie like heron bones, or the seams of sand where the tide has been, and all the while from the smothering sky, more and more fiercely at every blast came the pelting, pitiless arrows winged with murky white and pointed with the barbs of frost. But although for people who had no sheep, the sight was a very fine one, so far at least as the weather permitted any sight at all. Yet for us, with our flock beneath it, this great mount had for little charm. Watch began to scratch at once, and to howl along the sides of it. He knew that his charge was buried there, and his business taken from him. But we four men set to, in earnest, dig in with all our might and man, shoveling away at the great white pile and fetching it into the meadow. Each man made for himself a cave, scooping at the soft, cold, fluxed, which slid upon him at every stroke and throwing it out behind him in piles of castled fancy. At least we drove our tunnels in, for we worked indeed for the lives of us. And all converging towards the middle held our tools and listened. The other men heard nothing at all, or declared that they heard nothing, being anxious now to abandon the matter because of the chill in their feet and knees. But I said, Go, if you choose all of you, I will work it out by myself, you pie crust. And upon that they gripped their shovels, being more or less of Englishmen, and the least drop of English blood is worth the best of any other when it comes to lasting out. But before we begin again, I laid my head well into the chamber, and there I hear a faint maw-haar coming through some elves of snow, like a plaintiff buried hope or at last appealed. I shouted aloud to cheer him up, for I knew what sheath it was, to it the most violent of all the weathers, who had met me when I came home from London, and been so glad to see me. And then we all fell to again, and very soon we hauled him out. Watch took charge of him at once, with an air of the novelest patronage lying on his frozen fleece and licking all his face and feet to restore his warmth to him. Then figuring, fighting Tom jumped up at once and made a little butt at watch, as if nothing had ever held him, and then set off to a shallow place and looked for something to nibble on. Further in, and close under the bank where they had huddled themselves for warmth, we found all the rest of the poor sheath packed as closely as if they were in a great pie. It was strange to observe how their vapor and breath and the moisture exuding from their wool had scooped, as if it were, a covered room for them, lined with a ribbon of deep yellow snow. Also the churned snow beneath their feet was as yellow as gamble, two or three of the weaker hoggets were dead, from want of air and from pressure, but more than three score were as lively as ever, though cramped and stiff for a little while. However shall us get him home, John Frye asked, in great dismay, when we had cleared about a dozen of them, which we were forced to do very carefully, so as not to fetch the roof down. No manner a manning to drave them all through all the grit-driffin'ness. You see to this place, John, I replied, as we leaned on our shovels a moment, and his sheep came rubbing around us. Let no more them out for the present. They are a better way to be. Watch here, boy, keep them. Watch came with his little scut of a tail cocked as sharply as duty, and I set him at the narrow mouth of the great snow and teat. All the sheep slid it away and got closer, that the other sheep might be bitten first, as the foolish things imagined, whereas no good sheep dark even so much as lips a sheep to turn it to. Then out of the outer sheep, all now snowed and frizzled like a glorious wig, I took the two finest and heaviest, and with one beneath my right arm and the other beneath my left, I went straight home to the upper sheppy and set them inside and fasted them. Sixty and six I took home in that way, two at a time on each journey, and the work grew harder and harder each time as the drifts of the snow were deepening. No other man should meddle with them. I was resolved to try my strength against the strength of the elements, and try it I did, ay, and proved it. A certain fierce delight burned in me, as the struggle grew harder, but rather what I died and yield, and at last I finished it. People talk of it to this day, but none can tell what the labor was, who have not felt that snow and wind. Of the sheep upon the mountain, and the sheep upon the western farm, and the cattle on the upper boroughs, scarcely one in ten was saved. Do what we would for them, and this was not through any leglack, now that our wits were shopping, but from the pure impossibility of finding them at all, that great snow never ceased a moment for three days and night. And then when all the earth was filled, and the topmost hedges were unseen, and the trees broke down with way, wherever the wind had not lightened them, a brilliant sun broke forth and showed the lost of all our customs. All our house was quite snowed up, except where we had purged away by a dint of constant shoveling. The kitchen was as dark and darker than the cider cellar, and the long lines of furrowed scallops ran even up to the chimney stacks. Several windows fell right inwards, through the weight of the snow against them, and the few that stood bulged in and bent like an old bruised lantern. We were obliged to cook by candlelight, we were forced to read by candlelight. As for baking, we could not do it because the oven was too chilly, and a load of faggots only brought a little wet down the sides of it. When the sun burst forth at last upon that world of white, what he brought was neither warmth, nor cheer, nor hope of softening, only a clearer shaft of cold from the violent depths of sky. Long drawn alleys of white haze seemed to lean towards him, yet such as he could not come down with any warmth remaining. Broad white curtains of the frost fog looped around the lower sky on the verge of hill and valley and above the laden trees, only round the sun himself and the spot of heaven he claimed clustered a bright purple-blue, clear and calm and deep. That night such a frost ensured as we had never dreamed of, neither read in ancient books or histories of frostbisher, the cattle by the fire froze and the crock upon the hearth cheeks many men were killed and cattle ridged in their head ropes. Then I heard that fearful sound, which never I had heard before, neither since have heard except during that same winter. The sharp yet solemn sound of trees burst open by the frost blow. Our great war not lost three branches and has been dying ever since, though growing meanwhile as the soul does, and the ancient oak at the cross was rent and many score of ash trees. But why should I tell all this? The people who have not seen it as I have will only make faces and disbelieve till such another frost comes, which perhaps may never be. This terrible weather kept Tom Fagas from coming near our house for weeks, at which indeed I was not vexed a quarter so much as Annie was, for I had never half approved of him as a husband for my sister in spite of his purchase from Squire Bassett and the grant of the royal pardon. It may be, however, that Annie took the same view of my love for Lorna and could not argue well of it, but if so, she held a peace, though I was not so sparing. For many things contributed to make me less good-humored now that my real nature was, and the very least of all these things would have been enough to make some people cross and rude and frictitious. I mean the red and painful clapping of my face and hands from working in the snow all day and lying in the frost all night, for being of a fair complexion and a ruddy nature and pretty plump with all, and fed on plenty of hot vitals and always forced by my mother to sit near the fire than I wished. It was wonderful to see how the cold ran revel on my cheeks and knuckles, and I feared that Lorna, if it should ever please God to stop the snowing, might take this for a proof of low and rustic blood and breeding. And this, I say, was the smallest thing, for it was far more serious that we were losing half our stock due all we were to shelter them, even the horses in the stable mustered all together for the sake of breath and steaming, had long icicles from their muscles almost every morning. But of all the things the very gravest to my apprehension was the impossibility of hearing or having any token of or from my loved one. Not that those three days alone of snow, tremendous as it was, could have blocked the country's soul, but that the sky had never ceased for more than two days at a time for four, three weeks thereafter to pour fresh piles of fleecy mantle. Neither had the wind relaxed a single day from shaking them. As a rule, it snowed all day, cleared up at night and froze intensely with the stars as bright as jewels, earth spread out in luxurious twilight, and the sounds in the air as sharp and crackling as artillery. Then in the morning, snow again before the sun could come to help, it matter not what way the wind was. Often and often the veins went round and we hoped for change of weather. The only change was that it seemed, if possible, to grow colder. Indeed, after a week or so, the wind would regularly box the compass, as the sailors call it, in the course of every day following where the sun should be as if to make a mark of him. And this, of course, immensely added to the peril of the drifts because they shifted every day and no skill or care might learn them. I believe it was on infamy morning or somewhere about that period when Lizzie ran into the kitchen to me where I was throwing my goose geese with the dogs and money ashes, the live dogs, I mean, not the arned ones. For them, we had given up long ago and haven't caught me by way of wander. For generally, I was out shoveling long before my young lady had her nightcap off. She positively kissed me for the sake of warming her lips, perhaps, or because she had something proud to say. You great fool, John, said my lady, as Annie and I used to call her on account of her heirs and graces. What a pity you never read, John. Much use, I should think and read, I answered. Though pleased with her condensation, read, I suppose, with a roof coming in and only this chimney left sticking out of the snow. The very time to read, John, said Lizzie, looking grander, our worst troubles are the need. Whence knowledge can deliver us? Amen, I cried out. Are you parsing a clerk? Whichever you are, good morning. Therepony was bent on my usual round, a very small one nowadays. But Eliza took me with both hands, and I stopped, of course, for I could not bear to shake the child, even in play for a moment, because her back was tender. Then she looked up at me with her beautiful eyes, so large, unhealthy, and delicate, and strangely shallowing outward as if to spread that meaning. And she said, now, John, this is no time to joke. I almost froze in bed last night, and added like an icicle, feel how cool my hands are. Now, will you listen to what I have read about climate's 10 times worse than this, and where none but clever men can live? Impossible for me to listen now. I have hundreds of things to see too, but I will listen after breakfast to your foreign climate's child, now attend the mother's hot coffee. She looked a little disappointed, but she knew what I had to do. And after all, she was not so utterly unreasonable. Although she did read books, and when I had done my morning's work, I listened to her patiently, and it was out of my power to think that all she said was foolish. For I knew common sense pretty well. By this time, whether it happened to be my own or any other person's, if clearly laid before me. And Lizzie had a particular way of setting forth very clearly whatever she wished to express and enforce. But the queerest part of it all was this, that if she could but have dreamed for a moment what would be the first application made me by her lesson, she would rather have bitten her tongue off than help me to my purpose. She told me that in the Arctic regions, as they call some places, a long way north where the great bear lies all across the heavens, and no sun is up for whole months at a time, and yet where people will go exploring out of pure contradiction and for the sake of novelty and love of being frozen, that here they always had such winters as we were having now. It never ceased to freeze, she said, and it never ceased to snow, except when it was too cold. And then all the air was choked with glittering spikes, and a man's skin might come off of him before he could ask the reason. Nevertheless, the people there, although the snow was 50 feet deep, and all their breath fell behind them frozen like a log of wood dropped from their shoulders, yet they managed to get along and make the time of the year to each other by a little cleverness. For seeing how the snow was spread lightly over everything, covering up the hills and valleys and the foreskin of the sea, they contrived a way to crown it and to glide like a flake along through the sparkle of the whiteness and the weaves of the wind's tossings and the ups and downs of cold. Any man might get along with a boat on either foot to prevent his sinking. She told me how these boats were made, very strong and very light, of ribs with skin across them, five feet long and one foot wide, and turned up at each end, even as a canoe is. But she did not tell me nor did I give it a moment's thought myself how hard it was to walk upon them without early practice. Then she told me another thing equally useful to me, although I would not let her see how much I thought about it. And this concerned the use of sledges and their power of gliding and the lightness of the following, all of which I could see at once through knowledge of our own farm sleds, which we employ in lieu of wheels, used in flatter districts. When I had heard all this from her, a mere chip of a girl as she was, unfit to make a snowbar even, or to fry snow pancakes, I looked down on her with amazement and began to wish a load of that I had given more time to books. But God shapes all our fitness and gives each man his meaning, even as he guides the wavering lines of snow descending. Our Eliza was meant for books. Our dear Annie for loving and cooking. I, John Reed, for sheep and wrestling, and the thought of Lorna and mother to love all three of us and to make the best of her children. And now, if I must tell the truth, as at every page I try to do, though God knows it is hard enough, I have felt through all this weather, through my life was Lorna's, something of a satisfaction in doing duty to my kindness and best of mothers into none but her. Four, if you come to think of it, a man's young love is very pleasant, very sweet and tickling, and takes him through the core of heart without his known how or why. Then he dwells upon its sideways without people looking and builds up all sorts of fancies, growing hot with working soul at his own imaginations. So his love is a crystal goddess set upon an obelisk, and whoever will not bow the knee, yet without glancing at her, the lover makes it a sacred right, either to kick or to stick him. I am not speaking of me and Lorna, but of common people. Then, if you come to think of it again, low or I will not say low, for no one can behold it, only feel, but remember what a real mother is, ever loving, ever soft, ever turning sin to goodness, vices into virtues, blind to all non-tents of wrong through a telescope beholding, though herself sold nigh to them. Faintest decimal of promise, even in her valourous child, ready to thank God again, as when her babe was born to her, leaping as at kingdom come, at a wandering syllable of gospel for her lost one. All this our mother was to us, and even more than all of this, and hence I felt a pride and joy in doing my sacred duty towards her, now that the weather compelled me. And she was as grateful and delighted as if she had no more claim upon me than a stranger's sheep might have. Yet from time to time I groan within myself and by myself, at thinking of my sad debauntment from the sight of Lorna, and of all that might have happened to her, now she had no protection. Therefore, I fell to at once upon that hint from Lizzie and being used to thatching work in the making of traps and so on, before very long I built myself a pair of strong and light snow shoes, framed with ash and ribbed with witty, with half tan, calf skin, scratched across and in a sole to support my feet. At first I could not walk at all, but flounder about most pedacy, catching one shoe and the other and both of them in the snow drifts to the great amusement of the girls who will come to look at me. But after a while I grew more expert discovering what my errors were and altering the inclination of the shoes themselves according to a print which Lizzie found in a book of adventures. And this made such a difference that I crossed the farm yard and came back again, though turning was the worst thing of all, without so much as falling once or getting my staff entangled. But oh, the aching of my ankles when I went to bed that night, I was forced to help myself upstairs with a couple of mop sticks and I rubbed the joints with neat foot oil which comforted them greatly. And likely though I would have abandoned any further trial but for Lizzie's ridicule and pretended sympathy asking if the strong John Redd would have old Betty to lean upon. Therefore I set to again with a fixed resolve not to notice pain or stiffness but to warm them out of me. And sure enough, before dark that day I could get along pretty freely, especially improving every time after leaving off and resting. The astonishment of poor John Fry, Bill Dads and Jim Slocum when they saw me coming down the hill upon them in the twilight where they were clinging the fuzzy rick and trustling it for cattle was more than I can tell you because they did not let me see it but ran away with one accord and floundered into a snowdrift. They believed and so did everyone else especially when I grew able to glide along pretty rapidly that I had stolen mother, meldrums, sleeves on which she was said to fly over the four land at midnight every Saturday. Upon the following day, I held some counsel with my mother, not liking to go without her permission yet scarcely daring to ask for it. But here she disappointed me on the right side of disappointment saying that she had seen my pining which she never could have done because I had been too hard at work. And rather than watch me grieving so for somebody or other who now was all in all to me, I might go upon my course and God's protection go with me. At this I was amazed because it was not at all like mother and knowing how well I had behaved ever since the time of our snowing up I was a little moved to tell her that she could not understand me. However, my sense of duty kept me and my knowledge of the catchism from saying such a thing as that or even thinking twice of it. And so I took her at her word which she was not prepared for and telling her how proud I was of her trust and providence and how I could run in my new snow shoes. I took a short pipe in my mouth and started forth accordingly. End of chapter 42, recording by Daisy 55. Chapter 43 of Lorna Dume. This is a Liberox recording. All Liberox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit liberox.org. Recording by Daisy 55. Lorna Dume by R.D. Blackmore. Chapter 43. Not too soon. When I started on my road across the hills and valleys which now were pretty much alike, the utmost I could hope to do was to gain the crest of hills and look into the Dume Glen. Hence, I might at least describe whether Lorna still was safe by the six nests still remaining and the view of the captain's house. When I was come to the open country far beyond the sheltered homestead and in the full blunt of the wind, the king blast of the cold broke on me and the mighty breath of snow. More in high land, field in common, cliff in veil, and water cross. Over all the rolling folds of misty white were flung. There was nothing square or jagged left. There was nothing perpendicular. All the rugged lines were eased and all the breeches smoothly curved. Curves and mounds and rounded heathens took the place of rock and stump and all the country looked as if a woman's hand had been on it. Through the sparkling breath of white which seemed to glass my eyes away and outside the humps of laden trees bowing their backs like a woodman, I can try to get along half-sliding and half-walking in places where a plain-shotted man must have sunk and waited freeze until the thaw could come to him. For although there had been such valent frost every night upon the snow, the snow itself having never thawed even for an hour had never coated over. Hence it was as soft and light as if all had fallen yesterday in places where no drift had been but rather off than onto them. Three feet was the least of death but where the wind had chased it round or in a draught led like a funnel or anything opposed it, there you might very safely say that it ran up to 20 feet or 30 or even 50 and I believe sometimes a hundred. At last I got to my spy hill as I had then begun to call it. Although I never should have known it but for what it looked on and even to know this last again required all the eyes of love so ever sharp and village. For all the beautiful glen dune shaped from out the mountains as if on purpose for the dunes and looking in the summertime like a sharp cut vase of green now was besnowed half up the sides and at either end so that it was more like the white basins way in we boil plum puddings. Not a patch of grass was there, not a black branch of a tree all was white and the little river flowed beneath in arches snow if it managed to flow at all. Now this was a great surprise to me not only because I believe glen dune to be a place outside our frost but also because I thought perhaps that it was quite impossible to be cold near Lorna and now it struck me all at once that perhaps her eel was frozen as mine had been for the last three weeks with crying embers around it and perhaps her window would not shut any more than mine would and perhaps she wanted blankets. This idea worked me up to such a chill of sympathy that seeing no dunes now and about and doubting if any guns would go off in this state of the weather and knowing that no man could catch me up except with shoes like mine I even resolved to slide the cliffs and bravely go to Lorna. It helped me much in this resolve that the snow came on again thick enough to blind a man who had not spent his time among him as I had done for days and days. Therefore, I took my neat foot oil which now was clogged like honey and rubbed it hard into my leg joints so far as I could reach them and then I set my back and elbows well against the snowdrift hanging far down the cliff and singing some of the Lord's prayer through my cell phone providence before there was time to think or dream. I landed very beautifully upon a ridge of run-up snow in a quiet corner. My good shoes or boots preserved me from going far beneath it though one of them was sadly stained where grub had gnawed the ash in the early summertime. Having set myself all right and being in good spirits I made boldly across the valley where the snow was furrowed hard being now afraid of nobody. If Lorna had looked out of the window she would not have known me with those boots upon my feet in a well-clean sheepskin over me bearing my own J.R. in red just between my shoulders but covered now in snowflakes. The house was partly drifted up though not so much as ours was and I crossed the little stream almost without knowing that it was under me. At first, being pretty safe from interference from the other huts by virtue of the blinding snow and the difficulty of walking I examined all the windows but these were coated so with ice like ferns and flowers and dazzling stars that no one could so much as guess what might be inside of them. Moreover, I was afraid of prying narrowly into them as it was not a proper thing where a maiden might be only I wanted to know just this whether she were there or not. Taken nothing by this movement I was forced much against my will to venture to the door and knock in a hesitating manner not being sure but what my answer might be the mouth of carbide. However, it was not so for I heard a patter in the feet and a whispering going on and then a shrill voice through the keyhole asking, who's there? Only me, John Reed, I answered upon which I heard a little laughter and a little sobbing or something that was like it and then the door was open about a couple of inches with a bar behind it still and then the little voice went on. Put that finger in young man with the old ring on it but mind thee, if it be the wrong one thou shall never draw back again. Laughing at Gwennie's mighty threat, I showed my finger in the opening upon which she let me in and buried the door again like lightning. What does it mean in all this? Gwennie, I asked as I slipped about on the floor for I could not stand there firmly with my great snowshoes on. Manning enough and bad manning too, the Cornish girl made answer, us be shutting here and starving and don't let nobody upon us. I wish they were good to eat young man. I could manage most of thee. I was so frightened by her eyes full of wolfish hunger that I could only say good God. Haven't never seen the like before. Then drew I forth a large piece of bread which I had brought in case of accidents and placed it in her hands. She leaped at it as a starving dog leaps at sight of a suffer and she set her teeth in it and then withheld it from her lips with something very like an oath at her own vow of greediness and then away around the corner with it no doubt for her young mistress. I mean while I was occupied to the best of my ability and taking my snowshoes off yet wondering how much within myself while Lorna did not come to me. But presently I knew the cause for Gwynny called me and I ran and found my darling quite unable to say so much as John, how are you? Between the hunger and the cold and the excitement of my coming she had fainted away and laid back in her chair as white as the snow around us. In between her delicate lips Gwynny was thrusting with all her strength the hard brown crust of the rye bread which she had snatched from me so. Get water or get snow, I said. Don't you know what fame is? You're very stupid child. Never heard of Cornwall, she answered trusting still to the bread. Beyond the same as bleeding it would be directly if you go on squeezing away with that crust so eat a piece. I got some more. Leave my darling now to me. Hearing that I had some more the starving girl could resist no longer but tore it in two and had swallowed half before I had coaxed my Lorna back to sense and hope and joy and love. I never expected to see you again. I had made up my mind to die, John and to die without your knowing it. As I repelled this fearful thought in a manner highly fortified the tender hue flowed back again into her famous lips and cheeks and a soft of brilliance glistened from the depth of her dark eyes. She gave me one little shrunken hand and I could not help a tear for it. After all, Mr. Lorna, I said, pretending to be gay for a smile might do her good. You do not love me as Granny does for she even wanted to eat me. And shout before I have done, young man. Guiney answered laughing. You come in here with them red chicks and make us think of Sir Lorne. Eat up your old bitter brown bread, Guiney. It is not good enough for your mistress, bless her heart. I have something here such as she never tasted it like a being in such appetite. Look here, Lorna, smell it first. I have had it's ever since 12th day and kept it all the time for you. And he made it. That is enough to warn it good cooking. And then I showed my great minced pie in a bag of tissue paper and I told them how the minced meat was made of golden pippings finely shred with the undercut of the Sir Lorne and spiced and fruit accordingly and far beyond my knowledge. But Lorna would not touch her morsel until she had thanked God for it and given me the kindest kiss and put a piece in Guiney's mouth. I have eaten many things myself with very great enjoyment and keen perception of their merits and some thanks to God for them. But I never did enjoy a thing that has found its way between my own lips, half or even a quarter as much as I now enjoy holding and beholding Lorna. Sitting proudly upwards to show that she was faint no more entering into that minced pie and moving all her pearls of teeth inside her little mouth place exactly as I told her for I was afraid at least she should be too fast in going through it and cause herself more damage so than she got of nourishment. But I had no need to fear at all and Lorna could not help laughing at me for thinking that she had no self-control. Some creatures require a deal of food. I myself among the number and some can do a very little making no doubt the best of it. I have often noticed that the plumpest and most perfect women never eat so hard and fast as the skinny and three-cornered ones. These lads be often ashamed of it and eat most when the men be absent. It came to pass that Lorna being the loveliest of all maidens had as much as she could do to finish her own half a pie whereas guinea car facts though generous more than greedy ate up hers of outwinking after finishing the brown loaf and then I begged to know the meaning of this state of things. The meaning is sad enough said Lorna and I see no way out of it. We are both to be starved until I let them do what they'd like with me. That is to say until you choose to marry Carva Dune and be slowly killed by him slowly know John quickly. I'd hate him so intensely that less than a week would kill me. No doubt of that said guinea. Oh, she hates him nicely then but not have so much as I do. I told them that this state of things could be endured no longer on which point they agreed with me but saw no means to help it for even if Lorna could make up her mind to come away with me and live at Plower's Barrow's Farm under my good mother's care as I had urged so often behold the snow was all around us heaped as high as mountains and how could any delicate maiden ever get across it. Then I spoke with a strange tingle upon both sides of my heart knowing that this understanding was a serious one for all and might burn our farm down. If I warrant to take you safe and without much fright or hardship Lorna will you come with me? To be sure I will dear said my beauty smelled in a glance to follow I have small alternative to stall or go with you John. Guinea have you courage for it? Will you come with your young mistress? Will I stay? cried Guinea in a voice that settled it and so we began to arrange about it and I was much excited it was useless now to leave it any longer if it could be done at all it could not be too quickly done it was the counselor who had ordered after all other schemes had failed that his niece should have no food until she would obey him. He had strictly watched the house taking turns with carver to ensure that none came nigh in bearing fruit or carver but this evening they had thought it needless to remain on guard and it would have been impossible because themselves were busy offering a high festival to all the valley on commandership and Guinea said that nothing made her so nearly mad with appetite as the account she received from a woman of all the dishes preparing nevertheless she had answered bravely go and tell the counselor and go and tell the carver who sent you to spy upon us that we shall have a finer dish than any set before him and so in truth they did although so little dreaming of it for no doom that was ever born however much of a carver might vie with our Annie for men's meat now while we sat reflecting much and talking a good deal more in spite of all the cold for I was never in a hurry to go when I had lawn with me she said in her silvery voice which always led me so long as if I were a slave to a beautiful bell now John we are wasting time dear you have praised my hair till the curls were pried and my eyes till you cannot see them even if they are brown diamonds which I have heard for the fiftieth time at least though I never saw such a jewel don't you think it is high time to put your snow shoes John certainly Lana I answer till we have settled something more I was so cold when I came in and now I am as warm as a cricket and so are you you lively soul though you are not upon my heart yet remember John said Lana nesting for a moment to me the severity of the weather makes a great difference between us and you must never take advantage I quite understand all that dear and the harder it freezes the better while that understanding continues now do try to be serious I have tried to be serious and I have been trying fifty times and could not bring you to it John although I am sure the situation as the counselor says at the beginning of a speech the situation today the least is serious enough for anything come grinny imitate him Ginny was famed for her invitation of the counselor making a speech and she began to shake her hair and mount upon her footstool but I really could not have this though even Lana ordered it the truth was that my darling maiden was in such wild spirits as seeing me so unexpected like a release and of what she had never known quiet life and happiness that like a warm and loving nature she could scarcely control herself come to this frozen window John and see them light the stack fire they will little know who looks at them now be very good John you are staying that corner dear and I will stay on this side and try to breathe yourself a peephole through the lovely spears and banner oh you don't know how to do it I must do it for you breathe three times like this and that and then you rub it with your fingers before it has time to freeze again all this she did so beautifully with her lips put up like cherries and her fingers bent half back as only girls can bend them and her little ways thrown out against the white of the snowed up window that I made her do it three times over and I stopped her every time and let it freeze again so that she might be the longer now I knew that all her love was mine every bit as much as mine was hers yet I must have her to show it dwelling upon every proof lengthening out all certainty so jealous heart is low to own a life worth twice its own be that as it may I know that we thawed the window nicely and then I saw thawed down the stream or rather down the bed of it for there was no stream visible a little form of fire arising red and dark and flickering presently it caught on something and went upward boldly struck into many forks and then it fell and rose again do you know what all that is John as Lorna smiling cleverly at the manner of my staring how on earth should I know Papas burn Protestants in the flesh and Protestants burn Papasas in effigy as we mark them Lorna are they going to burn anyone tonight no dear I must rid you of these things I see that you are bigoted the dunes are firing donkery bacon to celebrate their new captain but how could they bring it here through the snow if they have sledges I can do nothing they brought it before the snow began the moment poor grandfather was gone even before his funeral the young men having none to check them began at once upon them they had always bore a grudge against it not that it ever did them harm but because it seemed so insolent canton gentlemen go home without a smoke behind them I have often heard them saying and though they have done it no serious harm since they threw the fireman on the fire many many years ago they have often promised to bring it here for their candle and now they have done it now look the tar is kindled though Lorna took it so in joke I looked upon it very gravely knowing that this heavy outrage to the feelings of the neighborhood would cause more stir than a hundred sheep stolen or a school of houses sacked not of course that the bacon was of the smallest use to anyone neither stopped anybody from stealing nay rather it was like the parish nail which begins when all is over and depresses all the survivors yet I knew that we valued it and were proud and spoke of it as a institution and even more than that our vestry had voted within the last two years seven shillings and six pints to pay for it in proportion with other parishes and one of the men who attended to it or at least who was paid for doing so was our Jim Slocum's grandfather however in spite of all my regrets the fire went up very merrily and y'all as it leaped on different things and the light danced on the snowdrifts with a mystic lilac hue I was astonished at its burning in such mighty depths of snow beginning said that the wicked men had been three days hard to work clearing as it were a cockpit for their fire to have its way and now they had a mighty power which must of five land yards square heaped up to a godly height and eager to take fire and this I saw a great obstacle to what I wish to manage for when this pyramid should be kindled thoroughly and pouring light and blazes round would not all the valley be like a white room full of candles thinking this I was half inclined to abide my time for another night and then my second thoughts convinced me that I would be fooling this for low what an opportunity all the dunes would be drunk of course in about three hours time and getting more and more in drink as the night went on as for the fire it must sink in about three hours or more and only cast uncertain shadows friendly to my purpose and then the outlaws must cower around it as the cold increased on them helping the way of the liquor jollity and the noise would be cheered as a false alarm most of all and which decided once for all my action when these wild and reckless villains should be hot with ardent spirits what was door or wall to stand betwixt them in my launder this thought quickened me so much that I touched my darling reverently and told her in a few short words how I helped the management sweetest in two hours time I shall be again with you keep the ball up and have guinea ready to answer anyone you are safe while you are dining dear and drinking heathers and all that stuff and before they have done with that I shall be again with you have everything you care to take in in a very little compass and guinea must have no baggage I shall knock loudly and then wait a little and then knock twice very softly with this I folded her in my arms and she looked frightening me not having perceived her danger and then I told guinea over again what I had told her mistress but she only nodded her head and said young man go and teach your grand mother end of chapter 43 recording by daisy 55 chapter 44 of launa doom this is a liver rocks recording all liver rocks recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liverrocks.org recording by daisy 55 launa doom by rd blackmore chapter 44 brought home at last to my great delight I found that the weather not often friendly to lovers and lately seeming so hostile had in the most important matter done me a signal service for when I had promised to take my love from the power of those wretcheds the only way of escape apparent lay through the main doom gate for though I might climb the cliffs myself especially with the snow to aid me I durst not try to fetch launa up them even if she will not have star as well as partly frozen and as for guinea store as we called it that is to say the little inches from the wooden hollow it was snowed up long ago to the level of the heels around therefore I was at my wits end how to get them out the passage by the doom gate being long and dark and difficult and leading to such a weary circuit among the snowy moors and hills but now being homeward bound by the shortest possible track I slipped along between the bonfire and the boundary cliffs where I found a carved way of snow behind a sort of avalanche so that if the dunes had been keeping watch which they were not doing but reveling they could scarcely have discovered me when I came to my old ascent where I had often scaled the cliff and made across the mountains it struck me that I would just have a look at my first and painful entrance to it the water slide I never for a moment imagined that this could help me now for I never had dared to descend it even in the fairest weather still I had a curiosity to know what my old friend was like I know upon him but to my very great surprise there was scarcely any snow there at all though plenty curling high overhead from the cliff like boasters overhead probably the sweeping of the northeast wind up the narrow chasm had kept the showers from blocking it although the water had no power under the bitter grip of frost all my water slide was now less a slide of ice ferroed where the waters ran out of fluted ridges seemed where wind had tossed and combed them even while congealing and crossed with little steps whenever the freezing torrent linger and here and there the ice was fibrous with the trail of sludge weed slanted from the side and mattered so as to make rest in place low it was easy tracking channel as if for the very purpose made which I could glide my sled with london sitting in it there were only two things to be feared one least the roads of snow above should fall in and bury us the other least we should rush too fast and so we carried headlong into the black world pool at the bottom the middle which was still unfrozen and looking more horrible by the contrast against this danger I made provisions by fixing a stout ball across but the other we must take our chance and trust ourselves to Providence I hastened home at my utmost speed and told my mother for God's sake to keep the house up till my return and to have plenty of fire blazing and plenty of water boiling and food enough hot for a dozen people and the best they had aired with the warming pan dear mother smiled softly at my excitement though her own was not much less I am sure and enhanced by some soul anxiety then I gave very strict directions to Annie and praised her little and kissed her and I even endeavored to flatter Eliza least she should be disagreeable after this I took some brandy both within and about me the former because I had sharp work to do and the latter in fear of whatever might happen in such great cold to my comrades also I carried some other provisions grieving much at their coldness and then I went to the upper lay hay and took out our new light pony sled which had been made almost as much for pleasure as for business though God only knows how our girls could have found any pleasure in bumping along so on the snow however it ran as sweetly as if it had been made for it yet I durst not take the pony with it in the first place because it's his hoofs would break through the ever shifting surface of the light and pollen snow and secondly because these ponies coming from the forest have a dreadful trick of name and most of all in frosty weather therefore I girded my own body with a dozen turns of hay rope twisting both the ends in under at the bottom of my breast and winding the hay on the skew a little that the hen pin thong might not slip between and so cut me in the drawing I put a good piece of spare rope in the sled and a cross seat with the back to it which was stuffed with my own wool as well as two or three fur coats then just as I was starting out came an in spite of the cold panting for fear of missing me and with nothing on her head but a land horn in one hand oh John here is the most wonderful thing mother has never shown it before and I can't think how she could make up her mind she had gotten it in a great well of cup bird with camp or and spirits and lavender Lizzie says it is a most magnificent silk skin cloak worth 50 pounds or a fathering at any rate it is soft and warm I said very calmly flinging it into the bottom of the sled tell mother I will put it over Lorna's feet Lorna's feet oh you great fool Annie for the first time reveling me over her shoulders and be proud you very stupid John it is not enough for her feet I answered with strong emphasis but don't tell mother I said so Annie only thank her very kindly with that I drew my traces hard and set my ashen staff into the snow and struck out with my best foot the best one at snow shoes I mean and the sled came after me as light as a dog might follow and Annie with the lanthorn seemed to be left behind and waiting like a pretty lamppost the full moon rose as bright behind me as a pattern of pure silver casting on the snow long shadows of the few things left above burden rock and shaggy full land and the laboring trees in the great white desolation distance was a marking vision hills looked nigh and the valleys fall when hills were far and valleys nigh and the misty breath of frost piercing through the ribs of rock striking through the pit of trees creeping to the heart of man lay along the hollow places like a serpent slouching even as my own gaunt shadow traversed it as if I were a moonlight's daddy long legs went before me down a slope even I the shadows master who had tried in vain to cough when coughing brought good licorice felt a pressure on my bosom and a husking in my throat however I went unquietly and at a very tight speed being only too thankful that the snow had ceased and no wind as yet risen and from the ring of low white vapors girding all the verge of sky and from the rosy blue above and the shafts of starlight set upon a quivering bow as well as from the moon itself and the light behind it having learned the signs of frost from its bitter twinges I knew that we should have a night as keen as ever England felt nevertheless I had work enough to keep me warm if I the question was could I contrive to save my darlin' from it dare not to risk my sled by any fall from the valley cliffs I dragged it very carefully up the steep incline of ice through the now chasin' and so to the very brink and verge where first I had seen my launder in the fishing days of boyhood as I then had a trident's fork for sticking of the loaches so I now had a strong ash stake to lay across from rock to rock and break the speed of descending with this I moored the sled quite safely at the very lip of the chasm where all was now substantial ice green and black in the moonlight and I then I set off up the valley skirting along one side of it the stackfire still was burning strongly but with more of it than blaze and many of the younger dunes were playing on the verge of it the children making rings of fire and their mothers watching them all the grave and revered warriors having heard of rudentism were inside of log and stone in the two lowest houses with enough of candles burning to make our list of sheep come short all these I passed with out the smallest risk of difficulty walking up the channel of drift which I spoke of once before and then I crossed with more of care and to the door of Lorna's house and made the sign and listen after taking my snow shoes off but no one came as I expected neither could I ask a light and I seem to hear a faint low sound like the moaning of the snow wind then I knocked again more strongly with a knocking at my heart and receiving no answer set all my power at once against the door in the moment it flew inwards and I glided along the passage with my feet still slippery there in Lorna's room I saw by the moonlight flowing in a sight which drove me beyond sense Lorna was behind a chair crouching in the corner with a hands up and a crucifix or something that looked like it in the middle of the room lay guinea car facts stupid yet with one hand clutching the anchor of a struggling man another man stood above my Lorna trying to draw the chair away in a moment I had him round the waist and he went out the window with a mighty crash of glass luckily for him that window had no bars like some of them then I took the other man by the neck and he could not plead for mercy I bore him out of the house as lightly as I would bear a baby yet squeezing his throat a little more than I feigned would do to an infant by the bright moonlight I saw I carried Marwood D. Wichahazel for his father's sake I spared him and because he had been my school fellow but with every muscle of my body strong with indignation I cast him like a skittle from me into a snow drift which closed over him then I looked for the other fellow tossed through Lorna's window and found him lying stunned and bleeding, neither able to groan yet Charlie Worth Dune in his gushing blood did not much listen leave me it was no time to linger now I fastened my shoes in a moment and caught up my own darling upon my shoulder where she whispered faintly and telling Ginny to follow me or else I would come back for her if she could not walk the snow I ran the whole distance to my slave care not who might follow me then by the time I had set up Lorna beautiful and smiling with the sealed skin cloaked all over her sturdy Ginny came along having trudged in the track of my snow shoes although she was on the back I set her in beside her mistress to support her and keep warm and then with one look back at the glen which had been so long my home of heart I hung behind the sled and lashed it down the steep and dangerous way though the cliffs were black above us and the road unseen in front and a great white grave or snow might at a single word come down Lorna was as calm and as an infant in its bed she knew that I was with her and when I told her not to speak she touched my hand in silence Ginny wasn't a much greater fright having never seen such a thing before neither known what it is to yield to pure love's confidence I could hardly keep her quiet without making a noise myself with my staff from rock to rock and my way thrown backwards I broke the sleds too rapid way and brought my grown love safely out by the self same road which first had led me to her girlish fancy in my boy's slavery un-pursued yet looking back as if someone must be after us we skirted around the black whirling pool and gained the medals beyond it here there was hard call of work the track being all uphill and rough and Ginny wanted to jump out to lighten the sled and to push behind but I would not hear of it because it was now so deadly cold and I fear that Lorna might get frozen without having Ginny to keep her warm and after all it was the sweetest labor I had ever known in all my life to be sure that I was pulling Lorna and pulling her to our own farmhouse Ginny's nose was touched with frost before we had gone much farther because she would not keep it quiet and snug between the seal skin and here I had to stop in the moonlight which was very dangerous and rub it with clove of snow as Elijah had taught me and Ginny scolding all the time as if myself had frozen it Lorna was now so far oppressed with all the troubles of the evening and joy that followed them as well as the piercing cold and difficulty of breathing like ferris wax in the moonlight when we stole a glance at her beneath the dark folds of the cloak and I thought that she was falling into the heavy snow sleep whence there is no awakening therefore I drew my traces tight and set my whole strength to the business and we slipped along at a merry pace although with many joltings which must have sent my darlin out into the cold snow drifts but for the short strong arm of Ginny and so in about an hour's time in spite of many hindrances we came home to the old courtyard and all the dogs lulled us my heart was quivering and my cheek as hot as the dunes bonfire with a wondering both what Lorna would think of our farm yard and what my mother would think of her upon the former subject my anxiety was wasted for Lorna neither saw a thing nor even opened her heavy eyes as to what mother would think of her she was certain not to think at all until she had cried over her and so indeed it came to pass even at this length of time I can hardly tell it although so bright before my bright mind because it moves my heart so the sled was at the open door with only Lorna in it the car facts had jumped out and hung back in the clearing given any reason rather than the only true one that she would not be intruding at the door were all our people first of course Betty Muxworthy teaching me how to draw the sled as if she had been born in it and flourishing with great room whenever a speck of snow lay then dear Annie an old Marley very quiet and counted almost for nobody and behind them mother looking as if she wanted to come first but doubted how the manners lay in the distance Lizzie stood fearful of a curging but unable to keep of it Betty was going to poke her broom right in under the sealed skin cloak where Lorna lay unconscious and where her precious breath hung frozen like a silver cobweb I caught up Betty's broom and flung a clean away over the corn chamber and then I put the others by and fetched my mother forward you shall see her first I said is she not your daughter hold the light there Annie dear mother's hands were quick and trembling as she opened the shining foes and there she saw my Lorna sleeping with her black hair all to shevo and she bent and she said God bless her John and then she was taken with violent weeping and I was forced to hold her us may teach you for now I reckon said Betty in her most jealous way Annie take her by the head and I take her by the toesome no taming to stand here like girl cocks don't take on those old missus she's in the Z low but her be a booty with this they carried her into the house Betty chatting all the while and going on now about Lorna's hands and the others crowding around her so that I thought I was not one and among so many women and should only get the worst of it and perhaps do harm to my darling therefore I went and brought Guinea in and gave her a spot full of bacon and peas and an iron spoon to feed either with which she did right heartily then I asked her how she could have been such a fool as to let those two valve fellas into the house where Lorna was and she accounted for it so naturally that I can only blame myself for my agreement had been to give one large knock if you happen to remember and after that two little knocks well these two drunken rules had come and one being very drunk indeed had given a great thumb and then nothing more to do with it and the other being three false or three quarters drunk had followed his lead as one might say but feebly and making two of it where upon Lorna jumped and declared that her John was there all this Guinea told me shortly between the wiles of eating and even while she licked the spoon and then there came a message for me that my love was sensible and was seeking all around for me then I told Guinea to hold her tongue whatever she did among us and not to trust to women's words and she told me they were all liars as she had found out long ago and the only thing I believed in was an honest man when found there upon I could have kissed her as a sort of tribute likened to be appreciated yet the peas upon her lips made me think about it and though it's faded to action so I went to see my dear that sight I shall not forget till my dying head falls back and my breast can lift no more I now know that I were then more blessed or harrowed by it for in the settle was my Lorna propped with pillows around her and her clear hands spread sometimes to the blaze and fireplace in her eyes no knowledge was of anything around her neither in her neck the sense of leaning towards anything only both her lovely hands were in treating something for her or to love her and the lines of supplication quivered in her sad white face all go away except my mother I said very quietly but so that I would be obeyed and everybody knew it then mother came to me alone and she said the frost is in her brain I have heard of this before John mother I will have it out because all that I could answer leave her to me all together only you sit there and watch for I felt that Lorna knew me and no other soul but me and that if not interfered with it she would soon come home to me therefore I sat gently by her leaving nature as it were to her own good time and will and presently the glance that watched me as at distance and in doubt begin to flutter and to brighten and to deepen into kindness them to beam of trust and love and then with gathering tears to falter and in shame to turn away but the small and treating hands found their way as if by instinct to my great projecting palms and tremble there for a little while we lingered thus neither wishing to move away neither caring to look beyond the presence of the other both alike so full of hope and comfort and true happiness if only the world would let us be and then a little sobbed disturbed us and mother tried to make believe that she was only coughing but Lorna guessing who she was jumped up so very rashly that she almost set her frock on fire from the great ash log and away she ran to the old oak chair where mother was by the clock case pretending to be knitting and she took the work from my mother's hands and laid them both upon her head kneeling humbling and looking up God bless you my fair mistress said mother bending nearer and then as Lorna's glaze prevailed God bless you my sweet child and so she went to my mother's heart by the very nearest road even as she had come to mind I mean the road of pity soothed by grace and youth and gentleness Chapter 44 Recording by Daisy 55 Chapter 45 of Lorna Dune This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Lorna Dune By R.D. Blackmore Chapter 45 A Change Long Needed Jeremiah Stickles was gone south at Ever the Frost set in to attack the Dune Glen but now this weather had put a stop to every kind of movement for even if men could have borne the cold they could scarcely be brought to face the perils of the snow drifts and to tell the truth I cared not how long this weather lasted so long as we had enough to eat and could keep ourselves from freezing not only that I did not want Master Stickles back again to make more disturbances but also that the dunes could not come prowling after Lorna while the snow lay piled between the surface soft and dry of course they would very soon discover where their lawful queen was although the track of sled and snowshoes had been quite obliterated by another shower before the revelers could have grown half as drunk as they intended but Marwood de Wickerhauser who had been snowed up among them as Gweny said after helping to strip the beacon that young squire was almost certain to have recognised me and to have told vile Carver and it gave me no little pleasure to think how mad that Carver must be with me for robbing him of the lovely bride whom he was starving into matrimony. However I was not pleased at all with the prospect of the consequences but set all hands on to thresh the corn ere the dunes could calm and burn the ricks for I knew that they could not come yet in as much as even a forest pony could not traverse the country much less the heavy horses needed to carry such men as they were and hundreds of the forest ponies died in this hard weather and buried in the snow and more of them starved for want of grass going through this state of things and laying down the law about it subject to correction I very soon persuaded Lorna that for the present she was safe and which made her still more happy that she was not only welcome but as gladdening to our eyes as the flowers of May truly so far as regarded myself this was not a hundredth part of the real truth and even as regarded others for Lorna had so won them all by her kind and gentle ways and her mode of harkening to everybody's trouble and replying without words as well as by her beauty and simple grace of all things that I could almost wish sometimes the rest would leave her more to me but mother could not do enough and any almost worshiped her and even Lizzie could not keep her bitterness towards her especially when she found that Lorna knew as much of books as need be as for John Fryer and Betty and Molly they were a perfect plague when Lorna came into the kitchen for betwixt their curiosity to see a live dune in the flesh when certain not to eat them and their high respect for birth we saw without honesty and their intense desire to know all about Master John's sweetheart dropped as they said from the snow clouds and most of all the admiration of a beauty such as never even their angels could have seen betwixt them between all this I say there was no getting the dinner cooked in the kitchen and the worst of it was that Lorna took the strangest of all strange fancies for this very kitchen and it was hard to keep her out of it not that she had any special bent for cooking as our any had rather indeed the contrary for she liked to have her food ready cooked but that she loved the look of the place and the cheerful fire burning and the racks of bacon to be seen and the richness and the homeliness and the pleasant smell of everything and who knows but what she may have liked and what the rest of maidens do to be admired now and then between the times of business therefore if you wanted Lorna as I was always sure to do God knows how many times a day the very surest place to find her was our own old kitchen not gossiping I mean nor loitering neither seeking into things but seeming to be quite at home as if she had known it from a child and seeming to my eyes at least what the breaking sun do among brown shocks of wheat but anyone who wished to learn where the girls can change or not as the things around them change while yet their hearts are steadfast and forever anchored he should just have seen my Lorna after a fortnight of our life and freedom from anxiety it is possible that my company although I am accounted stupid by folk who do not know my way may have had something to do with it but upon this I will not say much lest I lose my character and as regards company I had all the threshing to see to and more than half to do myself though any stranger would have thought that even John Fryer must work hard this weather else I could not hope at all to get our corn into such compass that a good gun might protect it but to come back to Lorna again which I always long to do and must long forever all the change between night and day all the shifts of cloud and sun all the difference between black death scarcely may suggest or equal Lorna's transformation quick she had always been in pert as we say on Exmo and gifted with a leap of thought too swift for me to follow and hence you may find fault with much when I report her sayings but through the hole had always run as a black string goes through pearls something dark and touched with shadow coloured as with an early end but now behold there was none of this there was no getting her for a moment to be serious all her bright young wit was flashing like a newly awakened flame and all her high young spirits leaped as if dancing to its fire and yet she never spoke a word which gave more pain than pleasure and even in her outward look there was much of difference whether it was our warmth and freedom and our harmless love of God and trust in one another or whether it were our air and water and the pea-fed bacon more perfect and more firmer figure and more light and buoyant with every passing day that laid its tribute on her cheeks and lips I was allowed one kiss a day only one for Mena's sake because she was our visitor and I might have it before breakfast or else when I came to say good night according as I decided and I decided every night not to take it in the morning but put it off till the evening time and have the pleasure to think about but when my darling came up to me in the early daylight fresher than the day star and with no one looking only her bright eyes smiling and sweet lips quite ready was it likely I could wait and think all day about it for she wore a frock of anise nicely made to fit her taken in at the waist and curved I never could explain it not being a mental maker but I know how her figure looked in it and the story those days are very sacred to me and if I speak lightly of them trust me it is with lip alone while from heart reproach peeps sadly at the flippant tricks of mind although it was the longest winter ever known in our parts never having ceased to freeze for a single night and scarcely for a single day from the middle of December till the second week in March to me it was the very shortest and the most delicious the same to Lorna but when the ides of March were calm of which I do remember something dim from school and something clear from my favourite writer low there were increasing signals of a change of weather one leading feature of that long cold and a thing remarked by everyone however unobservant had been the hollow moaning sound ever present in the air morning noon and night time and especially at night whether any wind were stirring our people said that it was a witch cursing all the country from the covens by the sea and that frost and snow would last until we could catch and drown her but the land being thoroughly blocked with snow in the initial parts of the sea with ice floating in great fields long mother Melgium had the covens all to herself for there was no getting at her and speaking of the sea reminds me of a thing reported to us and on good authority after who would not believe it unless I told them that from what I myself beheld of the channel I placed perfect faith in it and this is that a dozen sailors at the beginning of March crossed the ice with the aid of Poles from Clevedon to Penarth or where the whole rocks barred the floatage but now about the tenth of March that miserable moaning noise which had both foregone and accompanied the rigour died away from out the air and we being now so used to it thought at first that we must be deaf and then the fog which had hung about even in full sunshine vanished and the shrouded hills shone forth with brightness manyfold and now the sky at length began to come to its true menor which we had not seen for months a mixture, if I so may speak of various expressions whereas till now from all hellos tired, six weeks there the great frost set in the heavens had worn one heavy mask of ashen grey when clouded lost one emethystine tinge with a hazy rim when cloudless so it was pleasant to behold after that monotony the fickle sky which suits our England though abused by foreign folk and soon the dappled softening sky gave some earnest of its mood for a brisk south wind rose and the blessed rain came driving cold indeed yet most refreshing to the skin all parts with snow and the eyeballs so long dazzled neither was the heart more sluggish in its thankfulness to God people had begun to think and somebody had prophesied that we should have no spring this year no seed-time and no harvest for that the Lord had sent a judgment on this country of England and the nation dwelling in it because of the wickedness of the court and the encouragement shown to papists and this was proved, they said by what had happened in the town of London where for more than a fortnight such a chill of darkness lay in the neighbourhood even across the narrowest street and where the ice upon the Thames was more than four feet thick and crushing London bridge in Twain now to these prophets I paid no heed believing not that providence would freeze us for other people's sins neither seeing how England could for many generations have enjoyed good sunshine if papery meant frosts and fogs besides why could not providence settle the business once for all of our view he were destined to extremes of heat together with all who followed him not to meddle with that subject being beyond my judgment let me tell the things I saw and then you must believe me the wind of course I could not see not having the powers of a pig but I could see the laden branches of the great oaks moving hoping to shake off the load packed and saddled on them and hereby I may note a thing which someone may explain perhaps in the after-ages when people come to look at things this is that in desperate cold all the trees are pulled awry even though the wind has scattered the snow burden from them of some sorts the branches bended downwards like an archway of other sorts the boughs curved upwards like a red deer's frontlet this I know no reason for but I'm ready to swear that I saw it now when the first of the rain began and the old familiar softness spread upon the window glass and ran a little way in channels though from the coldness of the glass reaching the bottom knowing at once the difference from the short sharp thud of snow we all ran out and filled our eyes and filled our hearts with gazing true the snow was piled up now all in mountains round us true the air was still so cold that our breath froze on the doorway and the rain was turned to ice wherever it struck anything nevertheless that it was rain there was no denying as we watched it across black doorways and could see no sign of white mother who had made up her mind that the farm was not worth having after all those prophecies and that all of us must starve and holes be scratched in the snow for us and no use to put up a tombstone for our church had been shut up long ago mother fell upon my breast and sobbed that I was the cleverest fellow ever born a woman and this because I had condemned the prophets for a pack of fools not seeing how business could go on if people stopped to hearken to them then Lorna came and glorified me for I had predicted a change of weather not to keep their spirits up then with real hope of it and then came Annie blushing shyly as I looked at her and told her that Winnie would soon have four legs now this referred to some stupid joke made by John Fry or somebody that in this weather a man had no legs and a horse had only two but as the rain came down upon us from the south west wind and we could not have enough of it even putting our tongues to catch it as little children might do and beginning to talk of primroses to hear and see the gratitude of the poor beasts yet remaining and the few surviving birds from the car house lowing came more than a fifty milking times moo and moo and a turn up noise at the end of every bellow as if from the very heart of crime then the horses in the stables packed as closely as they could stick at the risk of kicking to keep the warmth in one another and their spirits up by discoursing these began with one accord to lift up their voices snorting, snaffling, Winnie-ing and nae-ing and trotting to the door to know when they should have work again to whom as if in answer came the feeble bleeding of the sheep what few by dint of greatest care had kept their fleeces on their backs and their four legs under them neither was it a trifling thing let who so will say the contrary to behold the ducks and geese marching forth in handsome order from their beds of fern and straw what a goodly noise they kept wrapping of their wings and a jerking of their tails as they stood right up and tried with a whistling in their throats to imitate a cox-cro and then how daintily they took the wet upon their dusty plumes and ducked their shoulders to it and began to dress themselves and laid their grooved bills on the snow and doubled for more oozy-ness Lorna had never seen, I daresay anything like this before and it was all that we could do to keep her from rushing forth and kissing every one of them oh the dear things, oh the dear things she kept saying continually how wonderfully clever they are I mean they look at that one with his foot up giving orders to the others, John and I must give orders to you, my darling I answered, gazing on her face so brilliant with excitement and that is that you come in at once with that worrisome cough of yours and sit by the fire and warm yourself oh no, John, not for a minute if you please, good John no, go away and the green meadow is coming forth and here comes our favourite robin who has lived in the oven so long and sung us a song every morning I must see what he thinks of it you will do nothing of the sort I answered very shortly being only too glad of a cause for having her in my arms again so I caught her up and carried her in and she looked and smiled so sweetly at me instead of pouting as I had feared that I found myself unable to go very fast I sat her there in her favourite place by the sweet-centred wood fire and she paid me porterage without my even asking her and for all the beauty of the rain I was feigned to stay with her until our any came to say that my advice was wanted now my advice was never much as everybody knew quite well but that was the way they always put it when they wanted me to work for them and in truth it was time for me to work not for others but myself and as I always thought for Lorna the rain was now coming down in earnest and the top of the snow being frozen at last and glazed as hard as China cup by means of the sun and frost afterwards all the rain ran right away from the steep inclines and all the outlets being blocked with ice set up like tables it threatened to flood everything already it was ponding up like a tired advancing at the threshold of the door from which we had watched the duck birds both because great piles of snow trended in that direction in spite of all our scraping and also that the gully-hole where the water of the shoot went out I mean when it was water now was choked with lumps of ice as big as a man's body for the shoot as we called a little runnel of everlasting water never known to freeze before and always ready for any man either to wash his hands or drink where it spouted from a trough of bark set among the white flintstones this at last had given in and its music ceased to lull us as we lay in bed it was not long before I managed to drain off this threatening flood by opening the old sluice-hole but I had much harder work to keep the stables in the car-house and the other sheds from flooding for we have a sapient practice and I never saw the contrary around about our parts I mean of keeping all rooms underground so that you step down to them we say that thus we keep them warmer both for cattle and for men in the time of winter and cooler in the summertime this I will not contradict though having my own opinion but it seems to me to be a relic of the time when people in the western countries lived in caves beneath the ground and blocked the mouths with neat skins let that question still abide for men who study ancient times to inform me if they will all I know is that now we had no blessings for the system if after all their cold and starving our weak cattle now should have to stand up to their knees in water it would be certain death to them and we had lost enough already to make us poor for a long time not to speak of our kind love for them and I do assure you I loved some horses and even some cows for that matter as if they had been my blood relations knowing as I did their virtues and some of these were lost to us and I could not bear to think of them therefore I worked hard all night to try and save the rest of them End of Chapter 45 Read by Landy in Sydney, Australia October 2008