184 THE GARDEN OF A 



disappeared twice in fifty yards from losing his foot- 

 ing and stepping into a drift, and when he finally 

 reached the kitchen door he was exhausted, having 

 been several hours in coming less than two miles. 

 His quest was some milk for his baby, as of 

 course the local pedler who usually supplied him 

 had failed. 



After he had rested and been fed with hot soup, 

 Tim went to start him on his way back along a 

 more direct line of fencing, while we ate our mid- 

 day meal in unusual awestruck silence. Still the 

 snow fell and the wind blew without cessation. 



Every now and then a bird driven from cover by 

 hunger, would be dashed against a window, and 

 before night half a dozen such unfortunates had 

 been fed and were resting in an open-work basket 

 in the kitchen. 



A sharp-shinned hawk, the wildest of its tribe 

 perched for so long on the trellis of the porch that 

 Evan had full time to sketch its half-defiant, half- 

 cowed attitude. 



Back to the den we went, and after the books 

 were housed, then came the placing of the pictures. 

 I had some Houbraken prints of Shakespeare, 

 Chaucer, Spenser, etc., and my special pride, a beau- 

 tiful copper engraving of Van Dyck's Charles the 



