Soon after this sad event the winter began to exhibit unwonted signs of severity. It had begun earlier, and continued later than usual. The snow averaged three feet deep in the plains and four feet in the woods, and the cold was intense, being frequently down to forty-five degrees below zero of Fahrenheit’s scale, while the ice measured between five and six feet in thickness on the rivers.
But the great, significant, and prevailing feature of that winter was snow. Never within the memory of man had there been such heavy, continuous, persistent snow. It blocked up the windows so that men had constantly to clear a passage for daylight. It drifted up the doors so that they were continually cutting passages for themselves to the world outside. It covered the ground to such an extent that fences began to be obliterated, and landmarks to disappear, and it weighted the roofs down until some of the weaker among them bid fair to sink under the load.
“A severe winter” was old Mr Ravenshaw’s usual morning remark as he went to the windows, pipe in hand, before breakfast. To which his better half invariably replied, “Never saw anything like it before;” and Miss Trim remarked, “It is awful.”
“It snows hard—whatever,” was Angus Macdonald’s usual observation about the same hour. To which his humble and fast friend Peegwish—who assisted in his kitchen—was wont to answer, “Ho!” and glare solemnly, as though to intimate that his thoughts were too deep for utterance.
Thus the winter passed away, and when spring arrived it had to wage an unusually fierce conflict before it gained the final victory over ice and snow.
Chapter Twelve.
Victory!
But before that winter closed, ay, before it began, a great victory was gained, which merits special mention here. Let us retrace our steps a little.