DEAD LOW 297 



the cosiest place, but the deadliest. The fur of 

 the mouse or rabbit driven out of home at dusk 

 by the intensity of winter persecution by day, 

 catches the hoar frost just like the coldest fern 

 frond. The air seems to tinkle with the tiny 

 atoms of ice that, in fact, have taken the place of 

 its moist vapour. 



The truth has to be told that, because it was 

 my annual practice many years ago, I have come 

 out after Christmas dinner to shoot a snipe or 

 woodcock in the marshy hollow below the lake 

 in the wood. He is not there to-day, perhaps 

 because the frost has made a crust upon the black 

 mud, and too hard for his tender beak to pierce. 

 In places where in the driest summer you would 

 sink to your knees, the frost has made a bridge you 

 can walk on. The bog is full of oak branches 

 black almost as mineralized bog oak, those that 

 appear above the water being decorated with 

 bright green moss. 



The tiny hairs of the moss have been converted 

 into crystals of hoar frost, by contrast with which 

 the green shines as the very emblem of hope in 

 adversity. And among them, rooted in the same 

 black and chilly swamp, unfolds the winter peziza, 

 the outer curve of its wineglass in fiery plum 

 colour, the inner of the purest scarlet that nature 

 can produce. It would flame among poppies and 

 put them to shame, but there are no poppies in 

 December. It shines in the cold of whiter twilight 

 with a brilliance that is startling and mesmeric. 



