44 SNOWED UP 



climate has become divine. The frost is intense at 

 night, but morning by morning the sun rises in un- 

 clouded splendour, and, sailing along his course low in 

 the southern sky, changes the vast expanse of white 

 into all kinds of opaline and pearly hues. 



The magic of sunshine is never more potent than on 

 a great snow-field. All the shaded surface is delicate 

 blue, reflecting the azure of the sky ; the illuminated 

 portions are warm cream colour or rosy. Now and 

 then there comes a change. A huge bastion of cloud, 

 table-headed, with gleaming crest and trailing violet 

 skirts, rears itself in the north and spreads across the 

 firmament. The sun is first veiled with a tawny inist, 

 and then passes out of sight. Immediately the whole 

 landscape seems to shrink and cower. The scene, so 

 smiling and radiant a moment ago, becomes forlorn 

 or grim ; Morven's solitary peak is hidden from view ; 

 the air, so delicious in its calm keenness, turns harsh 

 before the chill breath of the storm, and already the 

 flakes are flying fast. But the evil hour passes, the sun 

 blazes out once more, and there is something indescrib- 

 ably exhilarating in the atmosphere. 



In spite of the cold and exposure of this land, chest 

 and lung complaints are very rare. Consumption, the 

 terror of the milder west, is almost unknown ; alto- 

 gether, there are many worse places to be snowed up in 

 than Halkirk. 



Nevertheless, here, as in less salubrious plains, the 

 King of Terrors claims his tribute. A few days ago, 

 while the storm was at its height, there was a burial in 



