“Oh, Gregory, stop for a moment,” cried Mabel, “how warm it looks! Oh, how I wish I was a pig!”
They drew up in the ruddy light, and turned their frosted faces, frozen cloaks, and numbed hands towards it. And the leader turned round on his traces, and cheered up his poor nose with gazing; for warmth, as well as light, came forth in clouds upon the shivering air.
“What a wonderful man!” exclaimed Mabel again. “We have nobody like him in all our parish. He looks very good-natured. Oh, do let us go in, and warm ourselves.”
“And get our noses frozen off directly we come out. No, thank you,” said Gregory, “we will drive on. Get up, Spangler, will you, then?”
He flipped the leader with his frozen lash, and the tall man leaning upon the gate (as if he were short of employment) turned round and looked at them, and bade the busy man a very good evening, and came out into the snow, as if he were glad of any wheel track. At the turn of the lane they lost sight of him, slowly as they ploughed their way, and in another minute a very extraordinary thing befel them.
“Hark!” cried Mabel, as they came to a bank, where once the road might have gone straight on, but now turned sharply to the right, being broken by a broad black water. “I am quite sure I heard something.”
“The frost is singing in your ears,” said Charlie, “that is what it always does at sea. Or a blessed cold owl is hooting. Greg, what do you say?”
“I will offer my opinion,” replied the counsellor, “when I have sufficient data.”
“And when you get your fee endorsed. There it is again! Now did you hear it?”
She stood up between her two brothers, and stayed herself in the mighty jerks of road, with a hand on the shoulder of each of them. They listened, and doubted her keener ears, and gave her a pull to come back again. “What a child it is!” said the counsellor; “she always loses her wits when she gets within miles of that blessed Hilary.”