gradually
chilled through. I could feel the flesh rising in goose pimples at every
movement. What has happened? was my first thought. The bedclothes were
all there, four inches of them, and to find myself shivering under
such a pile seemed a reversal of the laws of nature. Shivering is an
unpleasant operation at best and at briefest; but when one has shivered
till the flesh is lame, and every quiver is a racking; aching pain, that
is something quite different from any ordinary shivering. My wife was
awake and in the same condition. What did I ever bring her to this
terrible country for? She had been lying as still as possible for an
hour or so, waiting till she should die or something; and feeling that
if she stirred she should freeze, as water near the freezing point
crystallizes when agitated. She said that when I had disturbed the
clothes by any movement, she had felt like hating me. We were both
almost scared, it must be confessed. Such an experience had never been
ours before. In voices muffled by the bedclothes we held dismal confab,
and concluded that we must make our way to the sitting-room and get over
the register.

I have had my share of unpleasant duties to face in my life. I remember
how I felt at Spottsylvania when I stepped up and out from behind a
breastwork of fence rails, over which the bullets were whistling like
hailstones, to charge the enemy. Worse still, I remember how I felt at
one or two public banquets when I rose from my seat to reply to a toast,
and to meet the gaze of a hundred expectant faces with an overpowering
consciousness of looking like a fool, and of total inability to do or
say anything which would not justify the presumption. But never did an
act of my life call for so much of sheer will-power as stepping out of
that comfortless bed into that freezing room. It is a general rule in
getting up winter mornings that the air never proves so cold as was
anticipated while lying warm in bed. But it did this time, probably
because my system was deprived of all elasticity and power of reaction
by being so thoroughly chilled. Hastily donning in the dark what was
absolutely necessary, my poor wife and myself, with chattering teeth and
prickly bodies, the most thoroughly demoralized couple in history, ran
downstairs to the sitting-room.

Much to our surprise, we found the gas lighted and the other members of
the family already gathered there, huddling over the register. I felt
a sinking at th