His dames appear neither to miss nor to invite his attentions,
and their eyes, usually so bright and alert, often film in weary
discontent. Nature, however, is oblivious to all the dumb protests of the
barnyard, and the cold steadily strengthens.
Away on every side stretch the angular fields, outlined by fences that
are often but white, continuous mounds, and also marked by trees and
shrubs that, in their earlier life, ran the gantlet of the bush-hook.
Here and there the stones of the higher and more abrupt walls crop out,
while the board and rail fences appear strangely dwarfed by the snow that
has fallen and drifted around them. The groves and wood-crowned hills
still further away look as drearily uninviting as roofless dwellings with
icy hearthstones and smokeless chimneys. Towering above all, on the
right, is Storm King mountain, its granite rocks and precipices showing
darkly here and there, as if its huge white mantle were old and ragged
indeed. One might well shiver at the lonely, desolate wastes lying beyond
it, grim hills and early-shadowed valleys, where the half-starved fox
prowls, and watches for unwary rabbits venturing from their coverts to
nibble the frozen twigs. The river, which above the Highlands broadens
out into Newburgh Bay, has become a snowy plain, devoid, on this bitter
day, of every sign of life. The Beacon hills, on the further side, frown
forbiddingly through the intervening northern gale, sweeping southward
into the mountain gorge.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25