r a single day, from
the middle of December till the second week in March), to me it was the
very shortest and the most delicious; and verily I do believe it was
the same to Lorna. But when the Ides of March were come (of which I
do remember something dim from school, and something clear from my
favourite writer) lo, there were increasing signals of a change of
weather.

One leading feature of that long cold, and a thing remarked by every one
(however unobservant) had been the hollow moaning sound ever present in
the air, morning, noon, and night-time, and especially at night, whether
any wind were stirring, or whether it were a perfect calm. Our people
said that it was a witch cursing all the country from the caverns by the
sea, and that frost and snow would last until we could catch and drown
her. But the land, being thoroughly blocked with snow, and the inshore
parts of the sea with ice (floating in great fields along), Mother
Melldrum (if she it were) had the caverns all to herself, for there
was no getting at her. And speaking of the sea reminds me of a thing
reported to us, and on good authority; though people might be found
hereafter who would not believe it, unless I told them that from what I
myself beheld of the channel I place perfect faith in it: and this is,
that a dozen sailors at the beginning of March crossed the ice, with the
aid of poles from Clevedon to Penarth, or where the Holm rocks barred
the flotage.

But now, about the tenth of March, that miserable moaning noise, which
had both foregone and accompanied the rigour, died away from out the
air; and we, being now so used to it, thought at first that we must be
deaf. And then the fog, which had hung about (even in full sunshine)
vanished, and the shrouded hills shone forth with brightness manifold.
And now the sky at length began to come to its true manner, which we
had not seen for months, a mixture (if I so may speak) of various
expressions. Whereas till now from Allhallows-tide, six weeks ere the
great frost set in, the heavens had worn one heavy mask of ashen gray
when clouded, or else one amethystine tinge with a hazy rim, when
cloudless. So it was pleasant to behold, after that monotony, the fickle
sky which suits our England, though abused by foreign folk.

And soon the dappled softening sky gave some earnest of its mood; for a
brisk south wind arose, and the blessed rain came driving, cold indeed,
yet most refreshing to the skin, all parc