The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-08-08

They had had sixty years of this sort of thing,
and 1t was hard if they were not to enter into
their rest before the misery grew to its full head
The loss OF the dear old faces al the freside was
very sad, and the hearts of those who were LETT
behind starving ached sorely; but God had
taken them from the misery, which grew more
terrible as the wlnte: went on, and He knew
best.
Then the children began to die, and this was
very bitter,-very, very hard to bear. The
bonny bare-legged little things, who had done
no wrong who padded in the surf, that made
wreaths of those iafernal potato flowers, and
called them the lilies of heaven. To be locked
up here in an island in the Atlantic, without
one chance of making ones voice heard till it
was too late, and to see ones own bonny dar-
lings dying before ones own face Hush 1t
was well for the Maclavish that these men were
Scotchmen, not Irshmen 1t was well tor the
peace of the kingdom that these things happened
IN Ronaldsay aud Lewis, and not in Manchester
and Birmingham.
I was weary Halloween for the poor souls
The men who dug the graves noticed that day
by cay the frost got deeper into the earth. The
fishing lines froze like wires, the blocks refused
to run, the sails were stiff as boards, and the wo-
men who wearily, with blue fingers, knocked the
limpets of the rocks to save themselves from star
vation, began to notice that even the salt water
in the little pools among the rocks was begin
ming to freeze. And they came home and told
the men, and the men lost heart, and went no
more a-fshing? How could they Did uou
ever sit hour after hour fishing, with fourteen
degrees of frost, and in state of starvation ?
The men stayed at home, and lay in the bed
places.
And then they began to die. Yes The old.
est Of the able-bodied men began to lie down,
| and to fall asleep in a strange, quiet way.
Perfectly happy, perfectly calm. They would
lie tor day or two, and at last give over speak
ing La the morning they would be found qui-
city dead, without the sign of a spasm on their
iaces. This is no novelist's fancy the author
has seen what he is describing.
| All this time, the island lay in the bright
| brazen sunshine more beautiful than ever. The
ducks and the snipes had fed southwark the
curlew and the peewit had followed them, anC
the moor was silent. But for the shadows o.
/ the crags and corries, which eloped so long to-
wards the north and for the fantastic glaciers
on the hillside, which in summer time were
whipping burns one might have fancied, il
one only used the sense of sight, that it was
sprpg-time !; the leland had never locked more
beautiful After Christmas, it got new and
awful beauty. The wind was still steady, and
quiet from the north but one dag, Gil Mac
donald pointed out to MIR. Monroe and the
MacTavish, long low lght-brown line Of
cloud, which was backlog the lower summils o.
the Argyieshre hills, to the southeast
For two days the dun vapor had grown anC
spread until IL had obScured the sun. When il
had fairly disappeared, broad REQ orb, into
the snowcloud, Gil Macdonald said, /" I'm wish.
ing you good-day, old friend belize Ill never
see ye again"
In the morning the wind, which was in front
OF the dull cloud began 10 blow The thermom
eter rose 20 six degrees of frost and there STAYED
and would come no higher in spite of the south
east wind. Then the edge of the cloud reached
them and the dust at the corner of the LITTLE
street IN the village begun to grow white and
soon after the air was filled with straying crvs
tails of snow, which rose and fell, and whirled
about, and was driven into every Granny anC
corner. And those who looked toward Ber
More saw that the towering peak was rapidly
growing from brown to gray, and from gray Il
silver
For two days the snow came down, and ther
the north-wind came down once more and laiC
his deadly icy band on the island. The sky wal
clear again. blue overhead, but cleaning vel
low towards the horizon. Ben More lowered ur
over the vast sheets of snow which covered thu
island "a tall peak of ghastly white, barred
with lines of purple crag
A NOVEL PRoJECT- Ben Prentiss. the here