You may feel ever so worn, but you will not feel withered. You
will die in peace, hoping for the spring--and such a spring!"
Thus talking, in the course of two hours or so we arrived at the
dwelling of the old laird.
CHAPTER XXXII
The Peat-Stack
How dreary the old house looked as we approached it through the
gathering darkness! All the light appeared to come from the snow which
rested wherever it could lie--on roofs and window ledges and turrets.
Even on the windward walls, every little roughness sustained its own
frozen patch, so that their grey was spotted all over with whiteness.
Not a glimmer shone from the windows.
"Nobody lives _there_, father," I said,--"surely?"
"It does not look very lively," he answered.
The house stood upon a bare knoll. There was not a tree within sight.
Rugged hills arose on all sides of it. Not a sound was heard but the
moan of an occasional gust of wind. There was a brook, but it lay
frozen beneath yards of snow. For miles in any direction those gusts
might wander without shaking door or window, or carrying with them a
puff of smoke from any hearth. We were crossing the yard at the back
of the house, towards the kitchen-door, for the front door had not
been opened for months, when we recognized the first sign of life.
That was only the low of a bullock. As we dismounted on a few feet of
rough pavement which had been swept clear, an old woman came to the
door, and led us into a dreary parlour without even a fire to welcome
us.
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