A SNOW-STORM 93 



the last degree. The foot sped through it without 

 hindrance. I fancied the grouse and quails quietly 

 sitting down in the open places, and letting it drift 

 over them. With head under wing, and wing 

 snugly folded, they would be softly and tenderly 

 buried in a few moments. The mice and the squir- 

 rels were in their dens, but I fancied the fox asleep 

 upon some rock or log, and allowing the flakes to 

 cover him. The hare in her form, too, was being 

 warmly sepulchred with the rest. I thought of the 

 young cattle and the sheep huddled together on the 

 lee side of a haystack in some remote field, all en- 

 veloped in mantles of white. 



" I thought me on the ourie cattle, 

 Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 



O' wintry war, 

 Or thro' the drift, deep-lairing sprattle, 



Beneath a scaur. 



" Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, 

 That in the merry months o' spring 

 Delighted me to hear thee sing, 



What comes o' thee ? 

 Where wilt thou cow'r thy cluttering wing, 



And close thy ee?" 



As I passed the creek, I noticed the white woolly 

 masses that filled the water. It was as if somebody 

 upstream had been washing his sheep and the water 

 had carried away all the wool, and I thought of the 

 Psalmist's phrase, "He giveth snow like wool." 

 On the river a heavy fall of snow simulates a thin 

 layer of cotton batting. The tide drifts it along, 

 and, where it meets with an obstruction alongshore, 

 it folds up and becomes wrinkled or convoluted like 



