H ©uest for Winter. 2 1 9 



snow. The colour was all gone out of it. It was like 

 a sketch in black and white for the completed picture 

 to be done in midsummer. The only suggestion of 

 livelier hues was in the saffrons and yellows of the 

 willows, which did their own brave best to put a 

 cheerful glow into this sombre afternoon. But there 

 was soon another element in the scene which made 

 life and movement everywhere. A swift squall of 

 snow, the skirmish-line perhaps of a heavier fall to 

 come, whirled in upon us from the south and the air 

 was fairly alive with the hurrying masses. It was mar- 

 vellous to see how soon the mountains changed their 

 aspect. The hard outlines softened, the uncompro- 

 mising details of clearing and grove, gorge and boul- 

 der, valley and climbing slope, were merged and 

 melted in this cloud which fell upon them like an 

 enchanter's mist. In the shadowless depths of the 

 grey spaces the Whitbeck range, which rose just in 

 front of us, might have been two, five, twenty miles 

 away ; there was a total loss of the sense of distance. 

 There were no aids to the eye to help it in its 

 judgments. 



The clouds grew heavier as we swung about the 

 circle which cuts into North Egremont, and then bore 

 around toward Barrington. The first squall ceased. 

 But as the dusk came on, the sky took on a stormy 

 complexion. The wind was in the east, the air was 

 heavy with a frosty damp, 



"A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 



That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 



