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CHAPTER XLII
THE GREAT WINTER
It must have snowed most wonderfully to have made that
depth of covering in about eight hours. For one of
Master Stickles' 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 saw-pit newly used. However,
we trudged along in a line; I 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 a man might guess at it;
and the leaden depth of the sky came down, like a mine
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 sowing peas; but that there was
no room between them, neither any relaxing, nor any
change of direction.
Watch, 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 sunk 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
floundering, some laughter, and a little swearing, we
came all safe to the lower meadow, where most of our
flock was hurdled.
But behold, 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, tufting 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
channelled edges, twirled them round and made them
dance over the chime of the monster pile, then let them
lie like herring-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 but 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, digging with all our might and main,
shovelling away at the great white pile, and fetching
it into the meadow. Each man made for himself a cave,
scooping at the soft, cold flux, which slid upon him at
every stroke, and throwing it out behind him, in piles
of castled fancy. At last 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-crusts,' 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 began again, I laid my head well into the
chamber; and there I hears a faint 'ma-a-ah,' coming
through some ells of snow, like a plaintive, buried
hope, or a last appeal. I shouted aloud to cheer him
up, for I knew what sheep it was, to wit, the most
valiant of all the wethers, 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
noblest patronage, lying on his frozen fleece, and
licking all his face and feet, to restore his warmth to
him. Then fighting Tom jumped up at once, and made a
little butt at Watch, as if nothing had ever ailed him,
and then set off to a shallow place, and looked for
something to nibble at.
Further in, and close under the bank, where they had
huddled themselves for warmth, we found all the rest of
the poor sheep packed, as closely as if they were in a
great pie. It was strange to observe how their vapour
and breath, and the moisture exuding from their wool
had scooped, as it were, a coved room for them, lined
with a ribbing of deep yellow snow. Also the churned
snow beneath their feet was as yellow as gamboge. Two
or three of the weaklier 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 'em home?' John Fry 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 of maning to
draive 'un, drough all they girt driftnesses.'
'You see to this place, John,' I replied, as we leaned
on our shovels a moment, and the sheep came rubbing
round us; 'let no more of them out for the present;
they are better where they be. Watch, here boy, keep
them!'
Watch came, with his little scut of a tail cocked as
sharp as duty, and I set him at the narrow mouth of the
great snow antre. All the sheep sidled away, and got
closer, that the other sheep might be bitten first, as
the foolish things imagine; whereas no good sheep-dog
even so much as lips a sheep to turn it.
Then of the outer sheep (all now snowed and frizzled
like a lawyer's 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 sheppey, and set them inside and fastened them.
Sixty and six I took home in that way, two at a time on
each joumey; 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 would I die than yield; and at last I finished
it. People talk of it to this day; but none can tell
what the labour 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 barrows,
scarcely one in ten was saved; do what we would for
them, and this was not through any neglect (now that
our wits were sharpened), but from the pure
impossibility of finding them at all. That great snow
never ceased a moment for three days and nights; and
then when all the earth was filled, and the topmost
hedges were unseen, and the trees broke down with
weight (wherever the wind had not lightened them), a
brilliant sun broke forth and showed the loss of all
our customs.
All our house was quite snowed up, except where we had
purged a way, by dint of constant shovellings. The
kitchen was as dark and darker than the cider-cellar,
and long lines of furrowed scollops 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
lanthorn. We were obliged to cook by candle-light; we
were forced to read by candle-light; as for baking, we
could not do it, because the oven was too chill; and a
load of faggots only brought a little wet down the
sides of it.
For 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 violet depths of sky. Long-drawn alleys of
white haze seemed to lead 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 ensued as we had never dreamed
of, neither read in ancient books, or histories of
Frobisher. The kettle by the fire froze, and the crock
upon the hearth-cheeks; many men were killed, and
cattle rigid 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 walnut 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 Faggus 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 augur
well of it; but if so, she held her peace, though I was
not so sparing. For many things contributed to make
me less good-humoured now than my real nature was; and
the very least of all these things would have been
enough to make some people cross, and rude, and
fractious. I mean the red and painful chapping 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
withal, and fed on plenty of hot victuals, and always
forced by my mother to sit nearer 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, do all
we would to shelter them. Even the horses in the
stables (mustered all together for the sake of breath
and steaming) had long icicles from their muzzles,
almost every morning. But of all 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 so; but that the
sky had never ceased, for more than two days at a time,
for full 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 lustrous
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 mattered not what way the wind was. Often and often
the vanes 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 mock 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 Epiphany morning, or somewhere
about that period, when Lizzie ran into the kitchen to
me, where I was thawing my goose-grease, with the dogs
among the ashes--the live dogs, I mean, not the iron
ones, for them we had given up long ago,--and having
caught me, by way of wonder (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 airs and graces;
'what a pity you never read, John!'
'Much use, I should think, in reading!' I answered,
though pleased with her condescension; 'read, I
suppose, with 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 parson or clerk?
Whichever you are, good-morning.'
Thereupon I 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
shadowing outward, as if to spread their meaning; and
she said,--
'Now, John, this is no time to joke. I was almost
frozen in bed last night; and Annie like an icicle.
Feel how cold my hands are. Now, will you listen to
what I have read about climates ten 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 to; but I will listen after breakfast to
your foreign climates, child. Now attend to 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 of 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
fifty 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 wreaths of windy 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 their 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 chit of a girl as she was, unfit to make a
snowball even, or to fry snow pancakes, I looked down
on her with amazement, and began to wish a little 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 Ridd, 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 had felt through all this weather, though my
life was Lorna's, something of a satisfaction in so
doing duty to my kindest and best of mothers, and to
none but her. For (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
knowing how or why. Then he dwells upon it sideways,
without people looking, and builds up all sorts of
fancies, growing hot with working so at his own
imaginings. 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
rite 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 again) lo!--or I will not
say lo! for no one can behold it--only feel, or but
remember, what a real mother is. Ever loving, ever
soft, ever turning sin to goodness, vices into virtues;
blind to all nine-tenths of wrong; through a telescope
beholding (though herself so nigh to them) faintest
decimal of promise, even in her vilest 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 groaned within myself
and by myself, at thinking of my sad debarment 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, and 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 of withy, with half-tanned calf-
skin stretched across, and an inner sole to support my
feet. At first I could not walk at all, but floundered
about most piteously, catching one shoe in the other,
and both of them in the snow-drifts, to the great
amusement of the girls, who were 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 farmyard 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 mopsticks! and I rubbed the joints with
neatsfoot oil, which comforted them greatly. And
likely enough I would have abandoned any further trial,
but for Lizzie's ridicule, and pretended sympathy;
asking if the strong John Ridd 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 Dadds, and Jem
Slocombe, when they saw me coming down the hill upon
them, in the twilight, where they were clearing the
furze rick and trussing 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 every one else
(especially when I grew able to glide along pretty
rapidly), that I had stolen Mother Melldrum's sieves,
on which she was said to fly over the foreland at
midnight every Saturday.
Upon the following day, I held some council 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 catechism, 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 in Providence, and how I could run in my new
snow-shoes, I took a short pipe in my mouth, and
started forth accordingly.
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