The wild, tempestuous weather, which attended the death of Sir Emanuel Clavering, renewed itself at his funeral. In the interval betwixt these events there had been calm, clear days. The snow lay white and dazzling over the whole landscape; the nights were brilliant with stars, which seemed to derive double lustre from the frost. The funeral of Sir Emanuel took place in the little church just by, and was conducted by a neighbouring clergyman, a friend of the rector’s. None were invited but the immediate relatives, and the tenants, who received a notice that their presence at the church would be regarded as a mark of respect. But in the middle of the night preceding the day of the funeral, the wind again rose, snow began to fall, and the two elements seemed as if they had concerted to make the scene as miserable as possible. The winds raged, the snow fell, and drove as in a riotous madness. A stupendous ash-tree on the lawn, under which Sir Emanuel had been fond of sitting and reading, was blown down; the windows of his observatory on the hill, on the north side were driven in, and a small turret on the house, in which he kept piles of papers, fell inwards, and buried them. It was necessary to cut a way from the hall door to the church door, through the deep snows, amidst which six stout yeomen bore the coffin, staggering in the howling, tossing winds. Such was the war of the storm in the trees about the church and the rector’s house, that the voice of the clergyman could scarcely be heard as he read the burial service. The tenants, who came from some distance, gained their homes with much difficulty. For three or four days the weather continued its riotous character, and a winter of unremittent severity followed. The snows covered the hedges of the fields so completely that, when hard frozen, people walked over them as on a highway. Great numbers of sheep were lost in the mountain districts, and many people in different parts of the kingdom perished on heaths and moors amid the snows. Farmers were at their wits’-end for food for their cattle, which had all to be kept up. Alternate thaws and frosts hung from the eaves of buildings icicles a yard or more long, and a sudden frost following on driving rain, froze the wings of birds to their bodies, and in that condition incalculable numbers were seized and destroyed. The spring was late in coming, and was attended by floods, doing immense damage in their headlong course.