He became aware that this sound had reached him at intervals
several times already, but as often happens, had been disregarded
by him owing to his preoccupation. Now it was so loud as to force
itself positively upon his attention.

He listened, puzzled, wondering. His window stood high from the
ground and clear of any object. In a few moments, the sound made
itself audible again. He sprang up, wide awake now, and raising the
sash, pushed open the shutters--one of them easily; against the
other there was resistance from outside. This yielded before his
pressure; and as the shutter was forced wide open and David peered
out, there swung heavily against his cheek what felt like an
enormous brush of thorns, covered with ice. It was the end of one
of the limbs of the cedar tree which stood several feet from his
window on one side, and close to the wall of the house. Before
David was born, it had been growing there, a little higher, more
far-reaching laterally, every year, until several topmost boughs
had long since risen above the level of the eaves and dropped their
dry needles on the rotting shingles. Now one of the limbs, bent
over sidewise under its ice-freighted berries and twigs, hung as
low as his window, and the wind was tossing it.

Sleet! This, then, was the nature of the threatening storm, which
all day had made man and beast foreboding and distressed. David
held out his hand: rain was falling steadily, each drop freezing on
whatsoever it fell, adding ice to ice. The moon rode high by this
time; and its radiance pouring from above on the roof of riftless
cloud, diffused enough light below to render large objects near at
hand visible in bulk and outline. A row of old cedars stretched
across the yard. Their shapes, so familiar to him, were already