Now it so happened that, a few days after my bouncing and aggressive friend had delivered himself of this delicate little protest against any and every assertion I might venture to make in the conversation which had arisen between us, I was awaked at the usual hour of 7 a.m. by Jemima knocking at the door; and when Mr. Bob had growled his usual growl, and I had declared myself to be awake in a surly monosyllable, Jemima cried aloud, saying, “It’s awful snow, sir--drifts emendjous!” I drew the curtains open, pulled up the blinds, and lo! there was snow indeed. Not on the trees--that was well, at any rate--but all the air was full of snow. Not coming down from the clouds, but driving across the fields in billows of white dust--piling itself up against every obstacle--pollard, stump or gatepost, hedgerow, or wall, or farmstead--rolling, eddying, scudding along before the cruel north-easter, that was lashing the earth with his freezing scourge of bitterness. At about the distance of a pistol-shot from my window the high road runs straight as a ruler between low banks and thin hedges, and we can see it for half a mile or so till some rising ground blocks the view. This morning _there was no road_!--only a long broad stripe of snow that seemed a trifle higher than the ploughed lands that lay to the northward, and which were almost swept bare by the gale. To the southward there were huge drifts packed up against every little copse or plantation, and far as the eye could see not a human creature or sheep or head of cattle to lessen the impression of utter desolation. By the time we got down to breakfast the wind had lulled, and fresh snow was falling. That was, at any rate, an improvement upon the accursed north-easter. But it was plain that there were to be no _ante-jentacular_ or _post-prandial peregrinations_, as Jeremy Bentham used to phrase it, for us this day. “My dear,” I said, “I’m afraid we are really snowed up!” Now, what do you suppose was the reply I received from her Royal Highness the Lady Shepherd? Neither more nor less than this--“What a jolly day we will have! We needn’t go out, need we?” Nathan, the wise youth--agnostic, as he calls himself, which is only Greek for _ignoramus_--would have sneered at the Lady Shepherd’s chuckle, and she--she would have chuckled at his sneer. But as he was not there we only laughed, and somewhat gleefully set ourselves to map out the next fifteen hours with plans of operation that would have required at least fifty hours to execute.