After dinner, and as there was no chance of the groom returning that night, for darkness had already fallen, Antony went down the back steps to have another interview with his housekeeper, and to see that the one horse was snug for the night. He was nearly blown off his feet and half-suffocated with the choking ice-dust raised by the whirling blizzard before he was able to reach the back door of the little caravan. Being in comparative shelter, she was rocking far less than the large house-on-wheels; but Antony was glad enough to get inside. 'Sit down, Mrs Pendlebury; this is not a night to stand upon ceremony.' He held up his forefinger. 'Hark!' he said, almost solemnly. Rising and falling in mournful cadence was the shriek of the wind. Hungry wolves howling on lonely Russian steppes, wild beasts in forest jungle, these seemed to be the voices that fell now on the listening ear. Anon they would lull a little, only to increase next minute with redoubled rage and force, while frozen moss torn from the rocks and mixed with snow was blown against the window-panes, threatening every moment to dash them in. It was difficult even to hear each other talking. 'I greatly fear, Mary, that we may be storm-stayed for days. I came to ask how we are off for stores and oil.' Mary was understood to report as follows: Two gallons of oil in the kettle under the big caravan, groceries (including butter) enough for a week, milk (only condensed, but plenty of that), eggs a dozen; item, a leg of mutton uncooked; item, two cold roast-fowls (if Mary had said frozen she would have been nearer the mark); item, a roast-goose that the kindly proprietor at the Spa had insisted on putting inside the little caravan just as she started. 'And fixings, Mary?' 'Plenty of potatoes and green kale, and oat-cakes galore.' Antony was understood to say 'Hurrah!' but the sound was drowned in an extra blast of the storm-wind which was now tearing through the camp with more than hurricane force. 'And I,' he said, when it lulled for a few moments, 'have among my stores, Mary, two unopened bottles of wine of the Highlands, which, before we get out of this we may be glad to dispense to keepers.' It brightened a little after this, and Antony took advantage of the change to rush out and put up the shutters on both the caravans. He returned to the 'Silver Queen' almost immediately after, and glad enough was he to get inside, for the blizzard appeared to be now at its very height; and, curiously enough, the thermometer as well as the barometer had gone down with a run, and the former now stood at three degrees below zero, and the cold was intense. 'Shall I light the lamp, sir?' The lamp, by the way, hung on gimbals, like that on board a ship. 'Oh, not for a while; I have banked my own fire in the 'Gipsy Queen,' and Wallace and pussy are lying snugly on the rug; but by your fire, if you will let me sit a short time, I think it will be ever so much more cosy without the lamp.'