We drove home before the ice began to soften. Afterwards, I sat for an hour at my open window, listening to the musical tinkle and metallic clink of the falling ice from the trees in the woods across the creek.
With the reason given that Jamie and I needed exercise in the open every day,--our occupations being of the sedentary kind, as he said,--Mr. Ewart bade us fare forth with him to learn the art of snowshoeing. He was past master in it and a good teacher. By the middle of January we were well on our feet and independent of any help from him.
Oh, the joy of the fleet tracks over the unbroken white! Oh, the coursing of the blood, the deep, deep breaths of what Mr. Ewart called the "iced wine" air! Oh, the blessed hunger that was satisfied with wholesome food after the invigorating exercise! Oh, the refreshing sleep, with the temperature at zero and the still air touching my cheeks under the fur robe across my bed! And with it all the sense of security, the sense of peace, of rest!
In this atmosphere, the remembrance of the weary years in the great city grew dim. I rejoiced at it.
I was beginning, also, to make myself easily understood with the French. Their language I loved; their literature I cultivated. It was a delight to be able to visit the tiny homes in the village, whither I was sent on one errand or another by Mr. Ewart, so getting extra rides in the pung and longer hours in the bracing air. It was an education to make the acquaintance of various families, learn the names of every member of the households, their interests and occupations. They were such tiny homes, made so high of stoop to avoid the rising spring flood that the great river is apt to send far and wide and deep into the village streets, covering the noble park and flooding first floors, respecting neither twin-towered church nor manor house; so low in the walls, few-windowed, and those double and packed with moss.
And such expansive souls as I found in the tiny homes: the hostess of the inn, Mrs. Macleod's dressmaker who lived beneath the shadow of the great twin-towered church; the furrier and his wife on the market-square; from them I bought my warm coat; ancient Mère Guillardeau and her old daughter, weaver of rag carpets, and some of her friends who followed the same calling and showed me, during the short winter days, how to weave them on their rough looms.