unforeseen operations of the laws of nature which are peculiar to
arctic climates. During the long winter repeated falls of snow cover
the housetops with white mantles upwards of a foot thick, which
become gradually thicker and more consolidated as winter advances. In
spring the suddenness of the thaw loosens these from the sloping
roofs, and precipitates them in masses to the ground. These miniature
avalanches are dangerous, people having been seriously injured and
sometimes killed by them. Now it happened that a very large mass of
snow, which lay on and partly depended from the roof of the house
near to which the horses were standing, gave way, and just at that
critical point in Tom Whyte's speech when he "'ad 'im down to the
smith," fell with a stunning crash on the back of Mr. Kennedy's gray
mare. The mare was not "skittish"--by no means--according to Tom's
idea, but it would have been more than an ordinary mare to have stood
the sudden descent of half-a-ton of snow without _some_ symptoms of
consciousness. No sooner did it feel the blow than it sent both heels
with a bang against the wooden store, by way of preliminary movement,
and then rearing up with a wild snort, it sprang over Tom Whyte's
head, jerked the reins from his hand, and upset him in the snow. Poor
Tom never _bent_ to anything. The military despotism under which he
had been reared having substituted a touch of the cap for a bow,
rendered it unnecessary to bend; prolonged drill, laziness, and
rheumatism made it at last impossible. When he stood up, he did so
after the manner of a pillar; when he sat down, he broke across at
two points, much in the way in which a foot-rule would have done had
_it_ felt disposed to sit down; and when he fell, he came down like
an overturned lamp-post. On the present occasion Tom became
horizontal in a moment, and from his unfortunate propensity to fall
straight, his head, reaching much farther than might have been
expected, came into violent contact with the small Indian boy, who