had oddly associated within the idea of a mother and child talking
together, one loud tick, and quick--a feeble, sharp one following.

The day had been keen, and piercingly cold. The whole lift of heaven
seemed a dome of iron. Black and frost-bound was the earth under the
cruel east wind. Now the wind had dropped, and as the darkness had
gathered in, the weather-wise old labourers prophesied snow. The
sounds in the air arose again, as Susan sat still and silent. They
were of a different character to what they had been during the
prevalence of the east wind. Then they had been shrill and piping;
now they were like low distant growling; not unmusical, but strangely
threatening. Susan went to the window, and drew aside the little
curtain. The whole world was white--the air was blinded with the
swift and heavy fall of snow. At present it came down straight, but
Susan knew those distant sounds in the hollows and gulleys of the
hills portended a driving wind and a more cruel storm. She thought
of her sheep; were they all folded? the new-born calf, was it bedded
well? Before the drifts were formed too deep for her to pass in and
out--and by the morning she judged that they would be six or seven
feet deep--she would go out and see after the comfort of her beasts.
She took a lantern, and tied a shawl over her head, and went out into
the open air. She had tenderly provided for all her animals, and was
returning, when, borne on the blast as if some spirit-cry--for it
seemed to come rather down from the skies than from any creature
standing on earth's level--she heard a voice of agony; she could not
distinguish words; it seemed rather as if some bird of prey was being
caught in the whirl of the icy wind, and torn and tortured by its
violence. Again up high above! Susan put down her lantern, and
shouted loud in return; it was an instinct, for if the creature were
not human, which she had doubted but a moment before, what good could