I had been literally fire-starved, owing to the need for economizing on fuel in town; and now I was loose among my own woods again, with snapped branches lying in all directions among the undergrowth, I went in for an orgy of warmth. Large chunks of apple wood and stubby bits the wind had tossed down from the creaking fir-trees, made crackling glowing fires in the big open grates. An absurd butterfly unthawed itself from some crevice among the ceiling beams and came walking deliberately down the window curtain, evidently under the impression that he was in for a sultry summer.
For some time we sat and watched the splendour of it all.
When you are burning logs from old, sea-going ships, you see again the blue and saffron of the sky, and the green and peacock tints of the ocean; and in like manner you can see leaping from our forest logs the crimson and yellow and gold that once blazed in the autumn glory of the tree-covered hills, and the glow of the fire gives back the warmth and the sunshine that the trees caught in their leaves and cherished in their rugged branches.
I dropped off to sleep that night with the flickering fire-glow whispering of comfort and rest for body and brain. Yes, despite the soothing balm of it all, and the certainty of safety from “the terror that walks by night” so that one could sleep without that sense of constant listening that has become second nature with those of us who live in town, I could not enjoy it with the old-time zest. Who could, with the thought ever on one’s heart: what about this lad, and that one? where are they lying this bitter night?
Physical sense becomes numbed when one lives perpetually in the shadow of possible tragedy.
Probably it was the after-effect of our struggle with the wind and weather that caused us all to sleep very soundly that night; at any rate, it was broad daylight before anyone stirred in the cottage next morning, and we missed the doings of the storm king in the interval. When I first opened my eyes I wondered what the white light could be that was reflected on the ceiling. Then I looked out of the window, and what a scene it was! The whole earth, so far as the eye could see, was one vast fairyland of snow; moreover, the face of creation appeared to have risen three or four feet nearer the bedroom window since last I had looked out, though the full import of this did not occur to me at the moment. I could merely look and look at the wonderful transformation that had been effected so rapidly and so silently while we slept. All trace of the garden had disappeared; shrubs and trees alike were bowed down with billows of snow. In the more exposed places, the wind had blown some of the snow from the firs and larches, but for the most part the trees on the hillside were as laden with snow as those in the garden. We might have been high up in the Alps. The sun was trying to shine, and bringing a gleam and glint out of every snow crystal, but the sky still looked leaden in the north.
Eileen, bringing the morning tea, imparted the thrilling intelligence that the snow was several feet deep outside the doors, the outhouses inaccessible.