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.