For fully two months they stood in the snow in black armour of
iron bark unshaken, the front rank of the forest army that would not
yield to the northern invader.
Snow in broad flakes, snow in semi-flakes,
snow raining down in frozen specks, whirling and twisting in fury, ice
raining in small shot of frost, howling, sleeting, groaning; the ground
like iron, the sky black and faintly yellow - brutal colours of
despotism - heaven striking with clenched fist. When at last the general
surface cleared, still there remained the trenches and traverses of the
enemy, his ramparts drifted high, and his roads marked with snow. The
black firs on the ridge stood out against the frozen clouds, still and
hard; the slopes of leafless larches seemed withered and brown; the
distant plain far down gloomy with the same dull yellowish blackness. At
a height of seven hundred feet the air was sharp as a scythe - a rude
barbarian giant wind knocking at the walls of the house with a vast club,
so that we crept sideways even to the windows to look out upon the world.
There was everything to repel - the cold, the frost, the hardness, the
snow, dark sky and ground, leaflessness; the very furze chilled and all
benumbed. Yet the forest was still beautiful. There was no day that we
did not, all of us, glance out at it and admire it, and say something
about it. Harder and harder grew the frost, yet still the forest-clad
hills possessed a something that drew the mind open to their largeness
and grandeur.
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