carried some other
provisions, grieving much at their coldness: and then I went to the
upper linhay, and took our new light pony-sledd, which had been made
almost as much for pleasure as for business; though God only knows how
our girls could have found any pleasure in bumping along so. On the
snow, however, it ran as sweetly as if it had been made for it; yet I
durst not take the pony with it; in the first place, because his hoofs
would break through the ever-shifting surface of the light and piling
snow; and secondly, because these ponies, coming from the forest, have a
dreadful trick of neighing, and most of all in frosty weather.

Therefore I girded my own body with a dozen turns of hay-rope, twisting
both the ends in under at the bottom of my breast, and winding the hay
on the skew a little, that the hempen thong might not slip between, and
so cut me in the drawing. I put a good piece of spare rope in the sledd,
and the cross-seat with the back to it, which was stuffed with our
own wool, as well as two or three fur coats; and then, just as I was
starting, out came Annie, in spite of the cold, panting for fear of
missing me, and with nothing on her head, but a lanthorn in one hand.

'Oh, John, here is the most wonderful thing! Mother has never shown it
before; and I can't think how she could make up her mind. She had
gotten it in a great well of a cupboard, with camphor, and spirits, and
lavender. Lizzie says it is a most magnificent sealskin cloak, worth
fifty pounds, or a farthing.'

'At any rate it is soft and warm,' said I, very calmly flinging it into
the bottom of the sledd. 'Tell mother I will put it over Lorna's feet.'

'Lorna's feet! Oh, you great fool,' cried Annie, for the first time
reviling me; 'over her shoulders; and be proud, you very stupid John.'

'It is not good enough for her feet,' I answered, with strong emphasis;
'but don't tell mother I said so, Annie. Only thank her very kindly.'

With that I drew my traces hard, and set my ashen staff into the snow,
and struck out with my best foot foremost (the best one at snow-shoes, I
mean), and the sledd came after me as lightly as a dog might follow; and
Annie, with the lanthorn, seemed to be left behind and waiting like a
pretty lamp-post.

The full moon rose as bright behind me as a paten of pure silver,
casting on the snow long shadows of the few things left above, burdened
rock, and shaggy foreland, and the labouring trees. In the great white