omforting; and some would come to her hand, and sit,
and shut one eye, and look at her. Then she used to stroke their heads,
and feel their breasts, and talk to them; and not a bird of them all was
there but liked to have it done to him. And I do believe they would eat
from her hand things unnatural to them, lest she should he grieved and
hurt by not knowing what to do for them. One of them was a noble bird,
such as I never had seen before, of very fine bright plumage, and larger
than a missel-thrush. He was the hardest of all to please: and yet he
tried to do his best. I have heard since then, from a man who knows all
about birds, and beasts, and fishes, that he must have been a Norwegian
bird, called in this country a Roller, who never comes to England but in
the most tremendous winters.

Another little bird there was, whom I longed to welcome home, and
protect from enemies, a little bird no native to us, but than any
native dearer. But lo, in the very night which followed old Sir Ensor's
funeral, such a storm of snow began as never have I heard nor read of,
neither could have dreamed it. At what time of night it first began is
more than I can say, at least from my own knowledge, for we all went to
bed soon after supper, being cold and not inclined to talk. At that time
the wind was moaning sadly, and the sky as dark as a wood, and the straw
in the yard swirling round and round, and the cows huddling into the
great cowhouse, with their chins upon one another. But we, being blinder
than they, I suppose, and not having had a great snow for years, made
no preparation against the storm, except that the lambing ewes were in
shelter.

It struck me, as I lay in bed, that we were acting foolishly; for an
ancient shepherd had dropped in and taken supper with us, and foretold a
heavy fall and great disaster to live stock. He said that he had known
a frost beginning, just as this had done, with a black east wind, after
days of raw cold fog, and then on the third night of the frost, at this
very time of year (to wit on the 15th of December) such a snow set in
as killed half of the sheep and many even of the red deer and the forest
ponies. It was three-score years agone,* he said; and cause he had to
remember it, inasmuch as two of his toes had been lost by frost-nip,
while he dug out his sheep on the other side of the Dunkery. Hereupon
mother nodded at him, having heard from her father about it, and how
three men had been frozen