CHAPTER V. 



THE SNOW-WALKERS. 



THIS morning 



We looked upon a world unknown, 

 On nothing we could call our own. 

 Around the glistening wonder bent 

 The blue walls of the firmament ; 

 No cloud above, no earth below, 

 A universe of sky and snow. 



The sun shines, and a rosy suffusion is over the 

 landscape. All the fences are buried deep, and 

 the trees stand starkly outlined against the sky. 

 Millions of snow-crystals glint athwart the fields. 

 Birds swarm in the garden the home birds 

 more confiding and the wild birds tame. Tits 

 hang to the suet bags, and a general assembly 

 flock to the cornsheaf. A ring-ouzel flies wildly 

 from the rowan-tree, and four or five species of 

 thrushes are among the berries of the shrubs. 



So softly winnowed is the falling snow that it 

 scarce bends the few grasses and dead plants 

 that now appear above its surface. The kindly 

 snow obliterates the torn and abraded scars of 



