So the linnet drenched in the storm, will, while yet shivering, begin to sing and hop from branch to branch with the first sunbeam.
CHAPTER V
THE DEPOT
When Jean-Claude Hullin, in his shirt-sleeves, opened the shutters of his little house the next morning, he saw all the neighboring mountains—the Jägerthal, the Grosmann, the Donon—covered with snow. This first appearance of winter, coming in our sleep, is very striking to us: the old pines, the mossy rocks, adorned only the night before with verdure, and now sparkling with rime, fill our souls with an indefinable sadness. "Another year gone by," one says to one's self; "another hard season to pass before the return of the flowers!" And one hastens to put on the great-coat and to light the fire. Your sombre habitation is filled with a white light, and outside, for the first time, you hear the sparrows—the poor sparrows huddled under the thatch, their feathers ruffled—calling, "No breakfast this morning—no breakfast!"
Hullin drew on his big iron-nailed, double-soled shoes, and over his vest a great thick cloth waistcoat.
He heard Louise walking overhead in the little garret.
"Louise," he cried, "I am going."
"What! you are going away to-day also?"
"Yes, my child: it must be so: my affairs are not yet finished."