The frugal meals snatched by chance or at the favorable moments where inequalities of the ground permitted a more regular distribution and preparation of food served well enough. Now and then they espied a deserted house, and into this they crowded, enjoying the heat of fires made of the wood-work, the floors and windows of the house itself, while they dried their clothing, changed their shoes, and, gaining a respite and new strength, salleyed out again into the desolate landscape with its blue gray skies flaming with crimson, when the day set, and the snow cleared, and a sharpened icy edge of cold vibrated like an unseen but intensely realized cord stretched nippingly through the air. The leaders expected to reach a place called Tway stone, where a train was in waiting, which would carry them south of this immediate zone of the greatest snow falls. Grewsome sights were encountered, and the blanched faces of men turned away from the uncovered sepulchre of a horse and rider, now a child and mother, and sometimes in the wet morasses still unfrozen, beneath the towering ridges, the forlorn, immured body of a young woman with blanketed face and streaming hair. Leacraft and Thomsen, with Jim, worked unremittingly with the young Scotch woman. They patched up a rude litter and they carried her on this, trudging toilsomely along, and watching her needs. Their care was affectionate and touching, and soon other strong men offered their help, for gradually the sensation gained place--so quickly does the human fancy cling to the vaporous skirts of superstition--that the girl’s safety meant the rescue of all, that her security carried with it the common weal. She became a fetich, and they rejoiced in caring for her, as if contribution to her welfare conveyed its unseen benefits to all who engaged in the kind ministry. Nor did she fail, with the living hopefulness of youth, and with her fresh winning loveliness, to establish a return. Her smile, the lingering gratitude she showed to all, her own usefulness and ready help at the stop and waiting places when her eager intelligence watched and directed the provisioning and cooking, rewarded the toilers. She was quick and resourceful, cheerful in exhortation and advice, and certainly--to Leacraft--always lovely. Thomsen had forgotten his first resentment at Leacraft’s apparent admiration for his cousin. The two men had become very intimate. Both felt themselves on the edge of new events, which were in part to be shaped by the blind forces of the earth, and in larger part as they affected England, by the sagacity and steadfastness of men. They talked much over these things together. Both were sombre and frightened. The invincible powers of nature, the unconquerable ferocity of nature which is deaf to reason, blind to suffering, made them shrink and quail. To meet its urgency with make shifts was impossible, to resist it madness; the line of retreat was the only line of escape. They felt