"Several of the windows facing the east were swept in as easily as a spider's web; lead and glass, scattered all over the room, leaving only the shattered frames, through which rushed the resistless wind and blinding snow. One window, being almost new, the hinges and fastenings were snapped asunder like joints of thread, the snow lying in heavy wreaths over beds, furniture, and floor. Most of the windows on the weather-side were more or less broken evidently, in the first instance, by the scattered branches of fallen trees just in front of the house. Through the joints of doors and windows the cracks and crevices, before unknown to the eye, the drifting snow penetrated and piled up in ridges, so that rooms and passages had to be cleared like the pavement in the streets. "It is absolutely impossible to picture the scene of desolation revealed at daybreak on the morning of the 10th all round the house. The ground was strewn and literally covered with fallen slates and branches of trees. The appearance of the courtyard, or quadrangle, presented that of a grave-yard, the slates in all shapes, sizes, and forms, standing on end, like grave-stones projecting above the snow. "Notwithstanding the great number of huge trees levelled all round the house, neither the inmates of Cotehele, nor a single individual outside, once heard the crash of falling timber above the fierce howling of the blast. "We inside the house, at much risk, and after much labour, managed to find and secure the displaced skylights, and from that time, 7 P.M. till 4 A.M., we were hard at work clearing rooms of the snow and barricading broken windows with whatever material came first to hand, such as packing-cases, door-mats, old books and cardboard, battened firmly into the granite mullions. Many times during the fierce cannonade we feared the whole building would collapse, but beyond shattered windows and roof, the granite walls remain intact, and during the storm fires had to be extinguished, smoke and flames being driven into the room and the occupants driven out. "A somewhat remarkable incident in reference to this may here be recorded. Perched on the extreme point of an abrupt and precipitous rock, overhanging the river Tamar, stands the venerable old fane, better known as Sir Richard Edgcumbe's Chapel. Right and left of the building, nearly the whole of the timber was levelled, but the Chapel itself and a small clump of sturdy oaks surrounding the spot are, with the building, left intact, save one small insignificant tree whose roots and fangs were clinging to an almost barren piece of rock. [Illustration: A FALLEN MONARCH, COTEHELE, CALSTOCK.]