“Why, uncle! where are you going this bitter morning? Do come in.”
“Don’t stop me now, child, I’m in haste; perhaps I’ll drop in as I come back,” he said; then as he shook his finger at little Will, who was hanging on his mother’s apron, he gave them both a look so brimful of kindness and affection and something beyond both, as went to her very heart. That look Amy never forgot.
The cold was intense, but Mr. Fayerweather proceeded on his way. The air felt like solid ice to his face, where it was not entirely muffled with the roquelaure, the cape of which was soon thickly frosted with his breath. Some shivering, blue-nosed school-boys made their manners as they passed. “Run quick, my boys,” he said, “or old Jack Frost will have fast hold of you. See that you keep a warm school-room to-day.” A pipkin of water was thrown after them from a shop door—it was that of Nanny Boynton’s new residence—it froze as it fell, and rattled like pebbles on the snowy crust. When he reached the market-place (it was not a market-day,) one solitary load of wood was on the stand. As Mr. Fayerweather came up, the patient beasts which drew it, turned up their broad faces and looked wistfully at him beneath the wreaths of snow formed by their breath as it issued from their nostrils. The owner was thrashing himself very energetically with his arms, to induce a sensation of warmth. Mr. Fayerweather bought the wood and told the man to carry it up to his house and tell madam he sent him, this being tantamount with telling him to go and make himself comfortable by a good fire, with a good luncheon for himself and his cattle. Mr. Fayerweather then proceeded on his way. Dr. Holly’s thermometer stood at 18 below 0.
The table was laid for dinner when he returned home. His wife met him with as severe reproaches as she knew how to frame, for walking out on such a day.
“Don’t scold, my dear,” he replied, good-humoredly, “you are growing a perfect shrew, I declare. If you take to scolding, I shall certainly take to drinking. I am going to take some brandy now.” Then he went to the buffet, and taking from a liquor chest which stood in the lower part of it, a case-bottle of brandy, that had reposed there undisturbed, time out of mind, and unstopping it, he continued: