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.