The snow, lightly shadowed by the branches overhead, was more quiet to the sight, and where his path lay near fir trees, the snow, where fell their heavy shade, looked so dead and cold and grey that it recalled thoughts of night-time, or of storm, or of other gloomy things; and this thought of gloom, which the dense shadow brought, had fascination, because it was such a wondrous contrast to the rest of the happy valley, in which the sunbeams, now aslant, were giving a golden tinge to the icy facets of crags, to high-perched circling drifts, to the basin of unbroken snow, to the brown of maple trunks, and to the rich verdure of the very firs which cast the shadow.
It was after four o'clock in the afternoon when he stopped his steady tramp, arrested by the sight of the first living things he had seen--a flock of birds upon a wild vine that, half snow-covered, hung out the remnant of its frozen berries in a cleft of the hill.

The birds did not fly at his approach, and, going nearer and nearer on the silent snow, he at last stopped, taking in greedily the sight of their pretty, fluttering, life.

They were rather large birds, large as the missel thrush; they had thick curved beaks and were somewhat heavy in form; but the plumage of the males was like the rose-tint of dawn or evening when it falls lightly upon some grey cloud.

They uttered no note, but, busy with their feast, fluttered and hopped with soft sound of wings.
In lieu of gun or net, Trenholme broke a branch from a tree beside him, and climbed nearer to the birds in order to strike one down if possible.

To his surprise, as he advanced deftly with the weapon, the little creatures only looked at him with bright-eyed interest, and made no attempt to save themselves.