It is easy now to walk through the wood without making a noise: there is
room to pass between the stoles of ash; and the dead sticks that would
have cracked under foot are covered with snow. But be careful how you
step; for in some places the snow has fallen upon a mass of leaves
filling a swampy hollow. Above there is a thin crust of snow, but under
the leaves the oozy ground is still soft.

Upon the dark pines the snow has lodged, making the boughs bend
downwards. Where the slope becomes a hill the ash stoles and nut-tree
bushes are far apart and thinner, so that there are wide white spaces
around them. Regaining now the top of the hill where the plain comes to
the verge of the wood, there is a clear view down across the ash poles
to the withies, the white mere, and the meadows below. Everywhere
silence, stillness, sleep.

In the high trees slumbering creatures; in the hedgerows, in the bushes,
and the withies birds with feathers puffed out, slumbering; in the
banks, under the very ground, dormant animals. A quiet cold that at
first does not seem cold because it is so quiet, but which gradually
seizes on and stills the sap of plants and the blood of living things. A
ruthless frost, still, subtle, and irresistible, that will slay the bird
on its perch and weaken the swift hare.

The most cruel of all things this snow and frost, because of the torture
of hunger which the birds must feel even in their sleep. But how
beautiful the round full moon, the brilliant light, the white landscape,
the graceful lines of the pine brought out by the snow, the hills
yonder, and the stars rising above them!

It was on just such a night as this that some years since a most
successful raid was made upon this wood by a band of poachers coming
from a distance. The pheasants had been kept later than usual to be shot
by a Christmas party, and perhaps this had caused a relaxation of
vigilance. The band came in a cart of some kind; the marks of the wheels
were found on the snow where it had been driven off the highway and
across a field to some ricks. There, no doubt, the horse and cart were
kept out of sight behind the ricks, while the men, who were believed to
have worn smock-frocks, entered the wood.

The bright moonlight made it easy to find the pheasants, and they were
potted in plenty. Finding that there was no opposition, the gang crossed
from the wood to some outlying plantations and continued their work
there. The keeper never