SELF.

All Ruskin’s Works.

“The Wide, Wide World.”

“The Country of the Pointed Firs.” S. O. Jewett.

All my Gardening Books and Florists’ Seed Catalogues.

All my Wild Flower Books.

“A Little Book of Western Verse.” Eugene Field.

Poems by Ann and Jane Taylor.

All my Cookery Books.

All the Board of Agriculture’s Leaflets.

A Book on Deer Culture.

Of course, we each gazed in profound surprise and contempt on the

others’ lists, and asked why this and that had been put down. Why did

Ursula want a guide to London, when the object of going to The Island

was to get away from London?

She said she thought you ought to keep in touch with things even if you

were away; and if it came to that, why did I want a Deer book, since I

couldn’t look at venison?

I said I felt it in me that I should start keeping deer as soon as I

landed, and there was more sense in doing that than in reading a Time

Table, for instance!

Virginia protested a Time Table was absolutely essential, else how

would you ever be able to get away when you wanted to? And you never

knew _when_ you might be summoned to anyone’s funeral in a hurry, and

was she supposed to be cut off from _all_ human enjoyment? Whereas no

one could possibly want a Student’s Song Book, when they couldn’t sing

two notes in tune; and, also, why Mrs. Hemans, might she venture to ask?

“Yes, who would dream of carting around a Mrs. Hemans in these days?” I

scoffed.

“The frontispiece engraving of Mrs. Hemans always reminded me of

mother’s Aunt Matilda,” said Ursula impressively. “I only saw her

twice, but on the first occasion she gave me a doll, and on the second

a blue and white bead necklace; I’ve got three of the beads left, in my

workbox. And I’ve always loved beads, and I loved her in consequence,

and I wouldn’t dream of being parted from Mrs. Hemans. And, in any

case, why bring a Dictionary?”

“Because I may require to look up a more expressive word occasionally,

or enlarge my flow of vocabulary,” Virginia explained. “And I conclude

I’m not expected to be absolutely dumb when we get there!”

Of course, I don’t mean to imply that these are necessarily the books

we should have named had we sat down thoughtfully to compile a list

most representative of our tastes and needs; but whatever list I had

made, I’m sure I should have included the volumes I named; and it goes

to show that the books that make an individual appeal to us are not

necessarily those that our friends expect us to name.

The library catalogue was never completed, for, before we had time

further to criticize each other’s preferences, we were pulled up short

by a sound.

We all stopped our chatter on an instant, for surely and certainly

there could be no mistaking it, there was the ring of an iron spade

chinking on stone! When last we had looked out, just after breakfast,

not a stone had been visible for a spade to chink against in the whole

vicinity. We flew to the door, and there, touching his hat with a

smiling “Good morning, ma’am,” stood the elderly handy man who ought

to have been in bed with his bad cold; and behold, a clear path to the

lane. He had worked from the gate inwards, and we had been so busy

with our discussions indoors, we had not heard him till he reached the

porch.

“I was only able to get down downstairs yesterday,” the invalid

explained. “But in any case it wasn’t no good coming over till that

spell o’ snow was down, even if I’d been fit to come out.” Then, after

a detailed description of symptoms and sufferings and so forth—“Yes, I

think there’s a good bit more to come down yet. Nothing won’t be able

to be got up from the village yet awhile; they tell me the drifts is

eight feet deep in places. Maybe in a few days I’ll be able to get

down. I’ll be wanting some sharps soon myself for the fowls, so I’ll

have to try and get down by the end of the week. And the butcher’s

killing himself this week, I could bring you up a j’int. I’ve knocked

up a good bit of kindling wood in the wood shed, so you’ll be all right

now.”

Yes, we were all right now, from one point of view; but I devoutly

hoped he would not wait till the end of the week before he went for

those “sharps,” for I had discovered that we had _only one loaf in the

house_! And as they only bake twice a week in our village, and everyone

knows how long war bread won’t keep, I need only add that already we

had to cut off all the outside before bringing it to table, and by

to-morrow it would be quite gorgonzola-ish right through!

As soon as he had gone, Ursula burst forth, “Don’t talk to me any more

of the rights of women”—no one had been, but we let it pass—“don’t

tell me they are the equals of men, and that all they want is a good

education and scope for their energies. Look at us, haven’t _we_ all

had good educations?” (Ursula and her sister are thoroughly acquainted

with the literature of several European countries; they read Plato in

the original; and can give you reliable information on such points

as the similarity between the tribes on the borders of Tibet and the

Patagonians—if any exists. They can certainly be called well educated.)

“And wasn’t there scope enough for our energies out there? And then

consider what we accomplished! While a man like that comes along—says

he never went to school in his life, just risen from a sick bed, too,

so none too strong—yet in an hour or so he’s done what _we_ should not

have got through in a month. And look at the neat job he’s made of it,

with the snow banked up trimly on each side; why, we were about as

effective and as artistic as three fowls scratching on the surface of

things. And then look at the stack of wood he got ready in no time. I’m

sure I blushed to see him gazing at that collection of decrepit shovels

standing in the porch——”

“And well you might blush,” edged in Virginia, “remembering how you

selfishly stuck to the only decent shovel there was, with never so

much as an offer to either of us to have a turn.”

“—Yes, we ought to have votes, we’re so—capable!” Ursula went on, but I

begged her not to worry her head about votes just now, as the question

of food was of greater national importance.

At the word “food” of course everyone was all attention, and we made

ourselves into a Privy Council, and they appointed me Food Controller,

because it would give them the right to do all the grumbling. But the

matter was not quite as much of a joke as they thought. For so long

they had been accustomed to a pantry stocked with bottles and tins and

stores of all descriptions (and Virginia once remarked that to read

the labels alone—if you had lost the tin-opener—was quite as good as a

seven-course meal at a fashionable restaurant), that they forgot things

were not like that now! In the dairy, too (which we use as a larder),

it was the usual pre-war thing to see large open jam tarts in deep

dishes, with a fancy trellis work over the top of the jam, and large

pies with lovely water-lilies, made from the scraps of paste, on top,

and spicy brown cakes, with a delicious odour, standing on the stone

slabs—Abigail being a capital hand at pastry and cakes. The dairy is

built on the north side, close under the hill, and the great stone wall

that keeps the hill from tumbling down on top of the dairy is packed

with hart’s-tongue and the British maiden-hair fern, and rosettes of

the pretty little scaly spleenwort, and lacy tufts of wall rue, and

practically every other kind of fern that loves damp shade and the

English climate. And ivy runs over the lot right up to the top, where

wild roses and honeysuckle and blackberry ramp about in the sunshine,

and often peep down to see how it fares with their comrades in the cool

ravine below. The long fronds of the fern wave in at the dairy window,

and the ivy sends out little fingers, catching hold wherever it can,

and creeping in, very much at home, through the wire-netting that does

duty for a window. My guests always like to go into the dairy to see

the wonderful array of ferns; but I sometimes suspect it is also to

gaze on the appetizing-looking things that appeal irresistibly to all

who have spent an hour or two in our hungry air!

But war had made a considerable difference alike to pantry and

store-cupboard and larder, and we had to trust to the promise of Miss

Jarvis, the lady at the village shop—and one of the most valuable

members of the community—that we should not actually starve! As the

stocks had been used, they had not been replenished. Cinnamon buns,

lemon-curd cheese cakes, fruit cakes with a nice crack in the top, were

no longer piled up in the larder. No home-cured ham, sewn up in white

muslin, hung from the big hook in the kitchen ceiling. No large, dried,

golden-coloured vegetable marrows hung up beside it for winter use.

We had plenty of potatoes, fortunately (and never had we valued

potatoes as we did this year!), and we had the usual “remains” that

are in the larder, when the butcher has not called for a few days and

a family lives from hand to mouth, as one has had to do recently, lest

one should be suspected of hoarding!

There was a tin of lunch biscuits, some cheese, and cereals; but the

rest of the store cupboard seemed exasperatingly useless when it

came to sustaining life in a snow-bound household. What good was a

tin of linseed, for instance, or a bottle of cayenne, or a bottle of

evaporated horse-radish (with the sirloin presumably still gambolling

about somewhere in the valley)? Why had I ever laid in a bottle of

tarragon vinegar, a bottle of salad dressing, a box of rennet tablets,

a tin of curry powder, desiccated cocoanut, a bottle of chutney? Even

the tin of baking powder and the nutmegs and capers seemed extravagant

and superfluous. Oh, for a simple glass of tongue—but we had opened our

only one the day we arrived!

One thing was certain: while the snow remained at its present depth,

to say nothing of an increase, no provisions could be got up from the

village. The steep roads were like glass the last time we were out;

now they would be impassable for horses or vehicles, even though a

man might manage to get over them somehow. Milk we could obtain from

a neighbouring farm, perhaps a few eggs, possibly a fowl as a very

special favour, now that our path was cleared; but that was the utmost

we could hope to raise locally. The point to be considered was: How

long could we hold out?

“Well, there is only one other thing I can think of,” said Virginia;

“you must fly signals of distress, and hoist a flag up at the top of

the chimney—they always do in books. . . . How are you to get the flag

up the chimney? I’m sure _I_ don’t know if you don’t! What’s the good

of being an editor if you don’t know a simple little thing like that?”

But the problem was solved for me by a tap at the door, and then one

realised the superiority of the servants of the Crown over all ordinary

individuals. It was the postman. He said “Good morning” with the modest

air of one who knows he has accomplished a great deed, but leaves it

for others to extol.

“I’ve brought up the letters,” he said; “but I couldn’t get up the

parcels to-day. There are a good many.” I knew what that meant. My post

is necessarily a very heavy one, more especially when I am away from

town, and great packages of things are sent down daily. “Is there

anything I can take back with me?” he inquired.

I hastily scribbled some telegrams on urgent matters, glad of this

chance to get them sent off; and I knew the Head of Affairs would be

glad to hear we were all well. As I handed them to the man, he rather

hesitatingly produced a bulky newspaper parcel that had been hidden

under his big mackintosh cape, with an apologetic look, as it were, to

the Crown, that the garment should have been put to so unofficial an

use. Then in an undertone, lest the Postmaster-General in London might

overhear, he said—

“Miss Jarvis was afraid you might be running short of things.” The

thoughtful Lady of the Village Shop had sent up a loaf, a piece of

bacon and a pound of sugar. How I blessed her!

Next day he managed to get up some of the small postal packages. The

first one I opened was from one of the Assistant Editors in town.

“I see in the papers that you’ve had a heavy fall of snow,” she wrote,

“and as there was not a solitary line from you this morning, I’m

wondering if you are isolated? At any rate, I’m sending you a home-made

cake and a box of smoked sausages by this post (instead of MSS.) in

case you may be cut off from supplies.”

“If that isn’t bed-rock common sense,” said Ursula. “Most intelligent

girls would have improved the occasion by sending you newspaper

cuttings with statistics of the latest submarine sinkings, to keep your

spirits up.”

Another slight fall of snow was all the late afternoon brought us, not

enough to spoil the newly cleared path, but sufficient to reveal the

fact next morning that someone with large masculine boots had been

promenading round the cottage, for there were the footprints, a clear

track that even a detective could not have failed to see, leading

from the gate to the outhouses, from the outhouses to the scullery

door, from the scullery door to the best door (it’s absurd to call it

the front door, because each side is as much the front as the other

excepting the part that backs into the hill!), from the best door to

the door with the porch, and so on, out of the gate again.

As none of us knew anything about them, we concluded the handy man must

have returned, bent on some new errand of mercy. But he disowned them;

had not been near the place since the previous forenoon, and the snow

had not fallen till five o’clock. It looked exceedingly queer, not to

say uncanny, and we recalled the fact that the dog had barked violently

after we were in bed. So far as I knew, there was no resident on those

hills who would think of wandering round the house after dark; and no

tramp or odd wayfarer would ever scale those heights unless he had some

very urgent reason for so doing, and had a definite destination. It is

too stiff a climb to take on a casual chance of picking up anything;

moreover, unless a man knew his way, he would soon lose himself. Though

the footprints really perplexed me, I did not say very much about them;

but Eileen did.

When Mr. Jones from a neighbouring farm arrived with milk, I heard the

full description being given him at the kitchen door. He expressed

due interest, and described a mysterious case he had just read about,

in the weekly paper, of a servant who had disappeared from a house in

London where she had been in service for years, and no trace of her

had been found since. Eileen and he agreed as to the many points of

similarity between the two cases.

When the lad from the butcher’s came to know what portion I wished to

bespeak of the sheep they would be killing, come Friday, I heard Eileen

once more going through the story of the footprints, combined with

details of the missing domestic. He, in turn, told her how a burglar

had been one morning in a house next door to his grandmother’s in

Bristol, and how, when they chased him, he jumped right over the garden

wall, into the very dish of potatoes his aunt was peeling for his

dinner. (The pronouns were confusing, but I don’t think it was for the

burglar’s dinner the potatoes were intended.)

The farmer’s daughter who came to inquire if I would like a fowl, after

hearing the story, offered to lend Eileen a novelette she had just been

reading, where there were footprints exactly like these; and in the

last chapter it turns out that the footprints were those of—I forget

who or what, but it was very enthralling, and Eileen gratefully jumped

at the offer of the loan.

The old man who came to say that they couldn’t deliver any coals till

the weather broke, remarked that he didn’t like the look of it at all,

and said he should be quite nervous if he were she, and asked her if

she had heard about the old woman who had been found dead in her bed

in Yorkshire, died of cold, and fifty golden sovereigns tied up in the

middle of her pillow? Eileen had not heard of it. The old man said it

was as well to keep your eyes open, as there were funny people in the

world, and this seemed to him just such another affair.

And much more to the same effect.

* * * * *

That night I was suddenly awakened by a sound, though at first I

could not tell what it was. I lay wide awake, holding my breath: then

it came again, a gentle rasp, rasp, as though someone were scraping

something with a metal tool. At the same moment I heard Virginia and

Ursula stirring in the next room. I stole in to them; they too were

listening. And then we realised that the burglar had really come! From

the direction of the sound we knew he was scraping away the putty,

or something of the sort, from a pane of glass that was let into the

scullery door. If he managed to get through that, he could undo the

bolt, and would be free of the place.

What were we to do, we asked each other in whispers? Of course,

previously, I had always known what I should do if a burglar ever came

to my house. I should go downstairs, throw open the door and confront

him unafraid, asking him in a firm but most melodious voice what had

brought him to such a low moral depth, and urging him to better things.

He would be so undone by the sight of me and the sound of the music of

my voice, that he would crumple up at my feet and confess all his past

burglaries. Whereupon, I should motion him to come in and take a seat,

while I hastily prepared a cup of Bovril, and cut him a large plate of

cold roast beef; and on his observing that I had passed him the mustard

pot without first removing the silver spoon, he would be so overcome

by my confidence in him that he would voluntarily vow to turn over a

new leaf. He would leave with half-a-crown in his pocket. And years

afterwards a prosperous man would knock at my door, bearing in his

hand half-a-crown, etc.

But this particular case did not seem to fit in with my previous

programme for the reception of burglars. In the first place there was

no Bovril in the house; and secondly, there was no beef, only a tiny

piece of cold mutton in the larder—and you can’t do anything heroic

with only cold mutton.

Meanwhile the man was scraping away downstairs, and we did not know but

what he would be in upon us any moment.

“Shall we let the dog loose?” said Virginia.

“The dog!” I repeated. “Why, where _is_ the dog? Why isn’t he barking?”

Until that moment we had forgotten him entirely. There was no sound

of him below; and he is a ferocious little thing if strangers come

anywhere near the place.

“Oh, then they’ve poisoned him!” gasped Ursula, almost in tears.

“They’ve got some poisoned meat in to him somehow, under the door

perhaps, and he’ll be lying there a corpse, and we never thinking

of him.” We all three crept as silently as we could downstairs, to

find “the corpse” remarkably cheerful, with his nose at the crack of

an outer door, every hair of his body on end with tension, his ears

cocked up, and every muscle of him on the alert—but not a ghost of a

bark did he give, only a perfunctory waggle of his tail, just as an

acknowledgment of our presence, and an apology that he was too much

engaged at the moment to give us more attention. There was not much

poison about that dog! As the scraping got louder, and my teeth were

chattering violently (but only with the cold, as I explained to the

other two), I fled upstairs again, and they followed.

“What _do_ you usually do when burglars come?” whispered Virginia.

“I don’t know. I’ve never had one before,” I moaned.

“Didn’t you once tell me you had a bell, or something of the sort?”

said Ursula.

“Why, yes; I had forgotten that.” I keep a huge bell under the bed at

the head, and I always intended to ring it violently out of the window

if a burglar ever came. (Scrape, scrape, scrape, continued down below.)

“I don’t suppose anyone on these hills would wake up to listen; but, at

any rate, it might worry the burglar and send him off.”

“Let’s ring it now,” said Virginia eagerly, “and then, when he is well

_outside_ the gate, of course, we’ll let the dog run out after him.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “But first I want to go into Eileen’s room, and peep

out of her window and see _who_ is below. Her window is just over the

scullery door, and is always open at night. If it is anyone from the

district—though I don’t believe it is—I should recognise him.”

So we tip-toed into Eileen’s room, where she lay sound asleep.

“When I give the signal, you ring,” I said.

Cautiously, slowly, silently, I got my head a little further and

further out of the window, shaking with ague from head to foot. And

there I saw the burglar—he was Farmer Jones’s dog (alias the wolf, you

remember), and he had got hold of a sardine tin that had been emptied

that day. He was having a lovely time, licking that tin out, and as

he licked, so it scraped and scraped on the stones. No wonder my own

dog did not bark; he knew it was his ancient enemy without, and the

instinct of the dog of war was to wait stealthily till the foe should

get within his reach.

“Don’t ring the bell!” I whispered hoarsely, and we crept out of the

room.

“I think it’s just as well Eileen did not wake,” I said, as we made

ourselves a midnight cup of tea before turning in again, “for I’ve no

desire to hear _this_ episode being related all day long at the kitchen

door!”

* * * * *

Have you ever sat by the fire indoors, when the ground has been covered

with snow, and the sky grey and heavy, till you have been “absolutely

_perished_ with the cold,” and then someone has come and dragged you

out (or, if you have wonderfully uncommon sense, you have dragged

yourself out), and plunged right into it—a shrivelled-up martyr! After

ten minutes spent in trying to sweep the snow from the path, what have

you felt like?

I plunged right out into it—simply because the two girls were bragging

such a deal about their own heroic fortitude in forsaking the fireside

at the call of life’s stern duties, or something like that. But first

of all I put on a knitted hug-me-tight; then my leather motoring

undercoat; then my big cloth coat; and finally, my mackintosh. I tied

on a woollen sports cap with a winter motor scarf; I turned up my coat

collar, and put on a fur necklet; and, of course, I didn’t forget

gaiters and warm gloves.

Then I stood on the doorstep and looked out—if you believe me, the cold

went right through me, and fairly rattled my bones inside.

Still, I wasn’t going to be outdone in misery by the other two, and

noticing that the bushes were actually breaking down under the load of

snow, I seized a broom and sallied forth. After all, if one has to die

a martyr’s death, one may as well occupy the final moments in doing

useful kindnesses for one’s family.

It is some sort of solace to picture how they will eventually say, “To

think of her doing all that, when——”; or, “To the last she never gave

in; why only the very day——!”; or, “Ah! how often have I seen the poor

dear——!” etc.

So I made for the pink rhododendron, that was suffering badly; being

evergreen, its large rosettes of leaves, surrounding each flower-bud

of the future, had caught and held great masses of snow; the lower

branches were literally buried beneath the heavy drifts.

But as I found I couldn’t get at it without clearing a way through

a three-foot bank of snow, I set to work with a spade. It sounds

simple enough, I know; but unless you’ve been getting your living at

snow-clearing, you would never believe what a lot there is to it, when

you start to make a nice serviceable path through a drift from two to

three feet deep, and six feet long.

I reached the pink rhododendron at last. Getting my broom against a

main stem, I shook it gently. What a lovely shower came down! I don’t

know that I needed it all over me, personally; nor was it necessary to

choke up half the cutting I had just made. Still, down it came, white

billows and a rain of silver powder. I never knew what snow was really

like, till I shook it all over me, and the sun suddenly came out and

turned the cascade to a gleaming white radiance.

Having got well smothered to start with, I decided I might just as

well go on; and that I could dispense with the motor undercoat, which I

left hanging on the bush. Lower down the garden I could hear the clink

and scrape of shovel and spade against the stones, as the other two

cleared the snow from the various little flights of rough stone steps

that take you up or down, from one level of the garden to another.

But I didn’t feel like clearing steps just then; it was too niggly. I

wanted something bigger than that, and I somehow had a desire to work

alone, so I struck a path that went up the garden, and began to work my

way towards the top gate, clearing as I went.

As I bent over the smooth glistening surface, I was amazed to see the

number of messages written there for those who know the language of the

wilds well enough to read them! What a scurrying to and fro of little

feet had been going on since the snowfall, all on the one quest—food

and water! Birds innumerable had left their signatures; some I knew,

some I could not identify, save that they were birds. Rabbits I could

trace; stoats, too, might have made some of the writing in the snow;

and there were bigger tracks—perhaps a fox.

Everywhere there were tidings of other wayfarers, other workers, other

seekers—the many other dwellers who have their homes somewhere between

the larch-woods and the weir. The moment before the place had seemed a

frost-locked, deserted, uninhabitable waste of snow; now I saw it was

teeming with life, brave, persistent, not-to-be-daunted life, that in

spite of cold and hardship and privation and a universal stoppage of

supplies, still set out, with unquenchable faith, on the quest for the

food which they have learnt to know is invariably forthcoming, “in due

season.”

The surprising thing to me is the fact that such small bodies can ever

survive such a welter of snow. Aren’t they afraid they will sink down

and be swallowed up in it? Have they no fear lest they lose their way,

with the old landmarks obliterated? Doesn’t it strike terror to the

heart when they find their doorway blocked, and themselves snowed up in

burrow or hole? Yet, judging by outside evidence, it would seem that

none of these things daunt them; an obstacle is merely something to be

surmounted.

To my mind the most pathetic thing about it all is the fact that their

chief fear seems to be fear of human beings, a dread of the very ones

who could, and ought to, befriend them.

In my clearing I moved a small wooden box that had been used for

seedlings, and since had lain unnoticed beside a hedge. Underneath a

tiny field mouse had taken refuge. It seemed almost paralysed with

terror when I suddenly lifted the box, and escape was blocked on

every side by banks of snow. The poor little thing just sat up on its

hind legs and looked at me most pitifully. I can’t say that I exactly

cultivate mice, in an ordinary way, but—here was a fellow-creature in

distress, such a little one too; I couldn’t have refused its appeal. I

quickly put the box over it again, and clearing a space by the hole it

had used as a door, I put down some bird-seed—I always carry something

in my coat pocket for the birds—and I went away. Ten minutes later,

every bit was gone.

* * * * *

Working my way round to another thicket of rhododendrons, that is

a bank of purple and creamy white in June, once more I sent the

silver-dust flying with my trusty broom. As one great mass came

hurtling down, it so deluged me that for the moment I had to hold my

breath, shut my eyes, and clutch on to a branch to keep myself from

being buried under it. And then I heard a tragic whimper.

Turning round, I saw the small white dog, shaking himself out of the

mass—and such a dingy-dirty object his _passé_ white coat looked

against the snow! I had left him indoors, a melancholy little figure,

very sorry for himself, by reason of a swelled face. He will persist in

lying with his nose to the bottom crack of the back door, irrespective

of wind or weather, ever hopeful that a hare or a fox may come

trailing by; and then—oh joy! what a turmoil there is within (he quite

fancies he is “baying”), and what a scurrying of fur and feet without!

Having got him in, and rubbed him down, and wrapped him up in his

favourite bit of old blanket, and given him a bone (which he couldn’t

eat, poor little chap, but he had it in his basket with him, against

such times as his mouth was in working order again), I returned to the

garden—you couldn’t have kept me out of it now! I found I didn’t need

the hug-me-tight, however, and I left it on the orchard gate.

What a work it was, tumbling over stone edgings one forgot were there,

tripping over tree trunks and logs—the whole place seemed strewn with

obstacles one never noticed until the snow covered them over.

I picked myself up continually, and worked on with my broom. Virginia

came up once to point out to me my appalling lack of scientific method;

but as I have never had any illusions on this point, it didn’t worry

me. Ursula volunteered the information that I looked like Don Quixote

tilting at a windmill, each time I attacked a bush or tree. I knew she

was merely jealous of my ability. I’m not one to let a little thing

like that deter me from my course of well-doing. I merely took off

my fur necklet and thick motor scarf, and left them on a stile, so

sunburnt was I getting beneath them.

And how grateful even the dry cracking twigs of the rose bushes seemed

to be for the lifting of the load that bowed down one and all. The

hollies had been trying bravely to hold up their heads, but it was

hard work; every leaf had held out a little curved hand to catch a

few snowflakes as they fell, and the total result was a mound that

threatened to break the trees to pieces. They, too, shook themselves

cheerfully, when I relieved them of their burden.

I could not do much to help the lesser plants; they were mostly buried

beneath the snow, and I hoped they were the warmer in consequence. The

poor wallflowers, that had been so sprightly with opening yellow buds

when we arrived, now showed only shrivelled branches above the snow.

As I broomed my way towards the vegetable garden, I noticed that the

birds were gathering near—they had kept away before, while the dog was

about. But now the starlings began to shriek from the roof of the big

barn. “Look at her! Look at her! What’s the use of wasting time on rose

trees! No grub’s there! Look at her! Shaking snow down! Just as though

there wasn’t enough on the ground before!”

“Oh, do be quiet!” shouted back a rook. “Just look at our nest! It

would have been such an up-to-date affair, too; wife built it on the

new war-economy lines—clever bird my wife is—only three sticks, you

know; saves waste; and _now_ look at it! Wife can’t even find the

sticks!”

“Serves her right,” cawed a neighbour (a lady, I feel sure). “She

shouldn’t have started so early—always trying to get ahead of everyone

else with her spring cleaning!”

* * * * *

The sun had got the better of the clouds, and had changed the whole

earth from grey to gold, from dead white to a gleaming brilliance,

yellow in the sunlight, blue—undiluted blue—in the shade. I had seen

blue snow in pictures, and had hitherto regarded it as an artistic

exaggeration. But now I saw the blue with my own eyes on the north

side of the walls and barns, and where long shadows were cast by the

Wellingtonia, the hollies, and the evergreen firs. The mist still

hovered over the valleys, and shut us off from the lower lands, but it

was no longer cold and sombre; indeed, it was no longer mist at all; it

seemed just light enmeshed, a liquid golden atmosphere.

The snow gleamed and scintillated with its diamond-dusted surface; the

trunks of the Scots firs surprised one with the sudden warmth of red

they showed when struck by the sunbeams, and the lovely colour still

left in their blue-green foliage.

Far and wide the birds answered the call of the sun. Big pinions flew

across the sky, casting shadows on the snow-scape as they passed;

small birds darted in and out of holes in tree trunks, or crannies

under the eaves; there was a cheeping and a chattering all over the

garden and the orchard; while up and down the larches flitted the

tits—the blue-tits swinging upside down, almost turning somersaults,

as the notion chanced to take them; the coal-tits, any number of them,

skipping about from branch to branch, never still a moment, always

talking in their brisk little twitter; while over all there rang

incessantly the “Pinker, pinker, peter, peter,” of the great-tit.

Near at hand, robin, my little garden companion, was having a good deal

to say. At first I think he was reiterating what he had often said

before: that he considered the dog a nuisance that ought to be banished

from any properly conducted garden, since his habit of chasing every

moving object within sight was disturbing, to say the least of it, to a

conscientious worm-hunter.

Having finished on this subject, he began to talk about other things;

but try as I would, I could not understand what he said; yet I knew

he was trying to tell me _something_. He kept taking short flights

over to the wall, and then back to some branch near at hand. “Twitter,

twitter,” he kept on saying; yet he never even noticed the path I was

clearing, back he would fly to the wall.

At last, as he impatiently fluffed out his feathers, perched on a

white currant bush, till he looked like a ball, saying a lot more the

while, I made my way through the snow to the wall. He darted after me,

and stood on top of a mound of leaves that had been swept together

last autumn, and left to stand till the spring digging should start.

Being on the south side of the wall, and sheltered a little by the

wide-spreading branches of a big Spanish chestnut, it had escaped a

good deal of the snow, though it was frozen hard on the surface.

Here robin stood, and when he saw I was looking at him, he pecked

several times with his beak at the solid mass. Then he flicked his tail

and gazed at me. “Surely you understand what I want?” he said with

his beady eyes. “No? Oh! how stupid human beings are! Well, watch me

again!” Dab, dab, dab, went the small beak once more, without making

the slightest impression on the ice-bound lumps.

Then I grew intelligent.

“Out of the way,” I said to him, and he flew to a low branch of the

tree and watched me critically, while I drove the spade well into the

mass.

“That’s right,” he chirped out excitedly, as I turned it over and got

down to the softer portion, spreading the leaves about. “Why on earth

couldn’t you have done that sooner!” as he swooped down to my very feet

and seized something wriggly—gulp! I looked away.

What ninety-ninth sense is it, I wonder, that tells birds when food is

about? One moment robin and I had the chestnut tree and its environment

to ourselves. Next moment, directly I turned away, down came thrushes,

and blackbirds, and starlings; and though robin put his foot down

firmly, said it was all his, every worm of it, and dared anyone else

to touch so much as a caterpillar-egg, or he’d know the reason why, he

was outdone by numbers, and finally lost what he might have had because

he considered it his duty to chastise Mr. Over-the-wall-robin, who had

presumed to say that the leaf-heap belonged to him!

* * * * *

At last I got to the top gate, which is about one hundred feet higher

than the lower part of the garden. What a wonderful world I gazed

upon, so weird, so immensely mysterious it looked under the great snow

covering. The valleys where the sun did not penetrate were entirely

blotted out by soft mist. One seemed to be alone, high up in space,

girdled about by white and grey, gold and mauve and steely-blue; I

wanted to push on and on, to walk miles and miles, to fly if I could.

The fact was, the exhilaration of the keen pure atmosphere was already

beginning to tell on me, and was fast mounting to my head.

One thing I caught sight of on the opposite hills gave me pause for

thought: it was a larch-wood in which every tree was blown so far

over to one side, that there would be but little chance of their ever

recovering or getting into the upright. I remembered that the handy

man had told us trees were lying in all directions out in the main

road. I decided to climb still higher up the hill and see what my own

woods looked like. First, however, I took off the big coat, and left it

hanging on the under bough of a larch inside the gate.

Out of the top gate I went, and along the lane that now showed a

moderately hard path along the centre, where one and another had

trampled it down. A few yards brought me to a field that in June is one

dazzling, waving mass of moon daisies, mauve pyramidal orchises, rich

purple orchises, quaking grass, and a hundred other flowers besides.

Not a first class hay-crop, I admit; still, a fair-sized rick stands in

one corner. And although it may not possess strong feeding qualities

for cattle, this field has wonderful feeding qualities for mind and

soul; I’ve lived on it many and many a day through dreary London fogs

and amid dirty City pavements and sordid-looking bricks and mortar. And

when town has seemed unendurable, with its noise and its hustle and

its brain-and-body-wearying chase after the unnecessary, I’ve thought

of the brook that slips out from among a great mass of Hard Fern in the

birch and hazel coppice up above, and wanders across the orchis field,

with ragged robins fluttering their tattered pink petals beside the

sterner browns and greens of flowering reeds, and broad masses of marsh

mint—that is a mass of bluey-mauve in August—spreading in big clumps

and bosses wherever it can find a bit of damp earth.

I’ve shut my eyes in the noisy City train, and in a moment I’ve

gathered a big bunch of the quaking grass, brown, with a tinge of

purple, and the yellow stamens dangling from each little tuft. And the

comfort that the brook and the orchises and the reeds and the under

carpet of tiny flowers have brought me, has been worth more to me,

personally, than the money that twenty haystacks might have realised.

But to-day the field was just one white sheet, like all the rest of the

landscape. Along the south side of the wall the snow was not so heavy,

and using the broom as an alpenstock, I plodded up the field—giving a

wide berth to the place where the brook was down below—till at last

I reached the woods, first a coppice of birch and hazel and oak, and

adjoining it a larch-wood.

Once under the trees, the going was “all according”! It depended on

whether the snow was still on the branches, or had come down in small

avalanches to the ground beneath. But I determined to struggle on. I

was warmer than I had been since the previous summer, and more pleased

with life than I had been since before the War started. The larch-wood

offered the easier travelling, since there are not the down-drooping,

low-lying branches of sundries that are always catching at one’s hat

and hair in the mixed woods. With the larches you know just what to

expect and where to find it. The needles make a fairly soft carpet,

brambles are rare, and all you have to do is to gauge the level of the

lowest of the bare brown branches, and pitch your head accordingly.

I looked at the wood before I ventured in. Everything seemed as usual.

The outside trees that border the field are mixed firs, pines, and

Wellingtonia. These do not shed their leaves as the larches do, and

they stood up strong and erect, save where the heaviest laden boughs

were bending under their weight of snow.

For the first few yards the trees were normal, standing in orderly

ranks, much like the aisles of an old ruined cathedral, wherein the

snow has freedom of entry. Every twig, every cone, had its glistening

decoration. When a gust of wind shook tree or branches, down came the

snow, in powder for the most part, for the under branches broke the

masses as they fell, and sent them flying in all directions.

Suddenly I emerged from the sombre half light of the wood, into

brilliant sunshine, with clear space above. Yet—I wasn’t through the

wood; what did it mean? And what were these great white masses that

blocked all further progress? I had never seen this spot before, though

I know every tree in that wood; to me they are like individual children.

Then I saw that what lay before me was a piled-up mass of trees, torn

bodily up by the roots and lying in all directions one on top of each

other. For a moment something almost akin to fear seized me, the

awesomeness that comes over one when in the presence of a force that

is utterly beyond one’s puny power to compass or restrain. Here was a

footprint, indeed, of the storm that had done this stupendous thing.

The fringe of the wood all round was intact; the blizzard seemingly

having swirled down, a veritable whirlwind, into the very centre of

the plantation, tearing the trees out of the ground, and flinging them

about in uncontrolled fury.

It was an impressive sight—even with the kindly snow covering up the

wounds and the gashes, and doing its best to obliterate the harsh look

of devastation that lay over the scene.

Retracing my steps, I ran into another explorer who was likewise

trying to dodge a snow-bath round a tree trunk.

It was Virginia.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your meditations,” she said politely, “and I

won’t detain you a moment. I’ve merely come to ask if you would mind

lending me your rubbers—not your best ones you have on, but the second

best with the seven holes in the soles and one heel gone—in order that

I may go to the neighbours and borrow a slice of bread. ‘We ain’t

like them as asks,’” she went on, quoting a favourite expression of a

well-known whiner in the village, whose practice is to take without

asking, “‘but it do seem hard when you see yer own flesh and blood

a-crying for vittels.’ Not that I would presume to interfere with your

household arrangements and upset your meals, but what with Ursula in

a dead faint making her will, and Eileen packing up to return to her

grandmother in order to get something to eat——”

“What’s the time?” I cut her short.

“It was two when last I saw the clock, but I’ve wandered miles since

then in search of you, hence the fact that my own rubbers are worn out.”

Then I remembered that I had never mentioned the matter of meals to

Eileen that morning; though, in any case, there wasn’t much that could

be cooked till that sheep was killed, come Friday: we had naught but

the remains of a shoulder of mutton.

“How did you find where I was?” I enquired, as we ploughed our way back.

“Footprints, oh, blessed word!” she said. “In any case, you shed your

garments wherever you went, and thoughtfully left your coat hanging in

the larch avenue; Eileen saw it in the distance and came shrieking to

us that the burglar had evidently hung himself from a tree by the top

gate!”

As there proved to be nothing at all on the mutton bone, we decided

to reckon it a meatless day, and we sat down to a lunch of bread and

cheese and coffee—each reading a cookery book the while. The Food

Authorities surely couldn’t object to _that_!—and you’ve no idea what a

fillip it gives to a war-meal, if you’ve never tried it.

Collecting cookery books, ancient and modern, being one of my hobbies,

there was a fine assortment to choose from. I selected “Ten Minutes

with my Chafing Dish,” and what that author did in the time you would

never credit! My bread and cheese became, in turn, braised terrapin,

crayfish omelette, creamed oysters with Spanish onions, escalloped

chicken with mushrooms, and fricaseed trout with paprika sauce.

I had it all at the one meal, no questions asked about the number of

courses and the ounces of flour, and it only cost me about sixpence

including the coffee.

Ursula, who had annexed a 1724 volume, ate her frugalities to the

accompaniment of Double Rum Shrub; but, as I told her, I was thankful I

had been better brought up.

Virginia chose “The Scientific Adjustment of Food Values”; and,

before she had got through the first chapter, started to blame me

for giving them cheese _and_ butter, when I might know that both

contained a sweeping majority of proteids. Whereas, what she found

she really needed was cheese and water-melon (though cantaloupe might

take its place), and why wasn’t there water-melon (or cantaloupe) on

the table? She had known all her life long that she needed it—always

had an undefinable longing steal o’er her about twelve o’clock midday

and again at four-thirty—but her want had never been made articulate

before, simply because she wasn’t sure of the name of the missing link.

Now, however, if I expected to retain my hold on their affections, she

must really ask me to see that water-melon——

But I was too deep in the enjoyment of a dish of anchovy and caviare

canapes at the moment to interfere. I left her at it.

* * * * *

In the afternoon, as we were short of milk, I suggested that we should

go ourselves to the Jones’s farm in search of more. There was a beaten

track along the lanes now, so we took the tin milk-can and started off

uphill, thereby just missing the Head of Affairs, who came swinging

up the road from the village. Having seen the finally departing back

of the very last workman, he had caught the next train and arrived

unannounced.

The wind was keen when he got up out of the valley, so he turned up his

coat collar and rammed his cap well on his head. Finding the cottage

door locked, he knocked briskly and started to inquire for me, when

Eileen (whom he had never seen before, remember) opened the door in

response to his knock. But, to his amazement, before he got a couple

of words out, the door was banged to, in his face, and he was informed

through the large keyhole—

“The lady is not—I mean—she _is_ at home, but she is engaged; she

is—er—she is entertaining friends and can’t see anyone.”

Exceedingly bewildered, the caller waited a minute, trying in vain to

catch sounds of hilarity within, and then rapped again; and, as the

keyhole seemed the correct channel of communication, he said through

the aperture—

“Kindly tell your mistress that her husband is here.”