Had it been possible for an
avalanche to fall like a thunderbolt from the heavens, they would have
supposed that one had fallen in the night, and overwhelmed the house.
Door and windows were invisible, buried with the rude pavement in front
beneath a mass of snow. Spades and shovels in boys' hands had been busy
for hours during the night, throwing it up against the house, the door
having first been blocked up with a huge ball, which they had rolled in
silence the whole length of the long street.
Bruce and his wife slept in a little room immediately behind the shop,
that they might watch over their treasures; and Bruce's first movement
in the morning was always into the shop to unbolt the door and take
down the shutters. His astonishment when he looked upon a blank wall of
snow may be imagined. He did not question that the whole town was
similarly overwhelmed. Such a snow-storm had never been heard of
before, and he thought with uneasy recollection of the oath he had
uttered in the school-room; imagining for a moment that the whole of
Glamerton lay overwhelmed by the divine wrath, because he had, under
the agony of a bite from his own dog, consigned her to a quarter where
dogs and children are not admitted.
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