Where the slope becomes a hill the ash stoles and nut-tree bushes are far apart and thinner, so that there are wide white spaces around them.

Regaining now the top of the hill where the plain comes to the verge of the wood, there is a clear view down across the ash poles to the withies, the white mere, and the meadows below.

Everywhere silence, stillness, sleep.
In the high trees slumbering creatures; in the hedgerows, in the bushes, and the withies birds with feathers puffed out, slumbering; in the banks, under the very ground, dormant animals.

A quiet cold that at first does not seem cold because it is so quiet, but which gradually seizes on and stills the sap of plants and the blood of living things.

A ruthless frost, still, subtle, and irresistible, that will slay the bird on its perch and weaken the swift hare.
The most cruel of all things this snow and frost, because of the torture of hunger which the birds must feel even in their sleep.