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Then came the snow, which fell for three days and nights on end, and for several nights after, so that the town was lost under a white pall: house-entrances were with difficulty kept free, and the swept streets were banked with walls of snow, four and five feet high. The night-frosts redoubled their keenness; the snow underfoot crackled like electric sparks; the sleighs crunched the roads.

Now all this fair delight to the eyes, and good promise to the palate, was marred and baffled by the wind and cutting of the night-frosts. The opening cones were struck with brown, in between the button buds, and on the scapes that shielded them; while the foot part of the cover hung like rags, peeled back, and quivering.

October brought no change except in the weather, which declined suddenly to autumn on the hilltops, with night-frosts and continuous violent rain. The Austrians were still harassed perpetually by enormous and invariably successful raids, by bombardments and aerial bombing, to which they submitted with the patience of necessity.

Now all this fair delight to the eyes, and good promise to the palate, was marred and baffled by the wind and cutting of the night-frosts. The opening cones were struck with brown, in between the button buds, and on the scapes that shielded them; while the foot part of the cover hung like rags, peeled back, and quivering.

About midday, Captain Lund drove down on the ice to draw up the boat owned by his sons; after which he was to return a second time for the decoys and shooting-box of the homeward-bound sportsmen. The floe was fast wasting under the April sun, and his horses' iron-shod hoofs sank deep into the snow-ice, which the night-frosts had left at morn as hard as flint.