“Sleep on, child,” said Sigurd; “it was your brother I wanted to wake up, not you.”
“What is the matter, father? What has happened?” cried Jens, rising up in bed, and rubbing the ashes from the corners of his eyes.
“We are snowed up,” said the father, quietly. “It is already nine o’clock, I should judge, or thereabouts, but not a ray of light comes through the windows. I want Thoralf to help me open the door.”
Thoralf was by this time awake, and finished his primitive toilet with much despatch. The darkness, the damp cold, and the unopened window-shutters impressed him ominously. He felt as if some calamity had happened or were about to happen. Sigurd lighted a piece of driftwood and stuck it into a crevice in the wall. The storm seemed to have ceased; a strange, tomb-like silence prevailed without and within. On the hearth lay a small snowdrift which sparkled with a starlike glitter in the light.
“Bring the snow-shovels, Thoralf,” said Sigurd. “Be quick; lose no time.”
“They are in the shed outside,” answered Thoralf.
“That is very unlucky,” said the father; “now we shall have to use our fists.”
The door opened outward and it was only with the greatest difficulty that father and son succeeded in pushing it ajar. The storm had driven the snow with such force against it that their efforts seemed scarcely to make any impression upon the dense white wall which rose up before them.
“This is of no earthly use, father,” said the boy; “it is a day’s job at the very least. Let me rather try the chimney.”
“But you might stick in the snow and perish,” objected the father, anxiously.