His love, and she had come for shelter there;
And all her face was fair with rosy bloom,
The blush of happiness; and one held up
Her ungloved hand in both his own, and stooped
Toward it, sitting by her.  O her eyes
Were full of peace and tender light:  they looked
One moment in the ungraced lover’s face
While he was passing in the snow; and he
Received the story, while he raised his hat
Retiring.  Then the clock left off to strike,
And that was all.  It snowed, and he walked on;
And in a certain way he marked the snow,
And walked, and came upon the open heath;
And in a certain way he marked the cold,
And walked as one that had no starting-place
Might walk, but not to any certain goal.

And he strode on toward a hollow part,
Where from the hillside gravel had been dug,
And he was conscious of a cry, and went
Dulled in his sense, as though he heard it not;
Till a small farmhouse drudge, a half-grown girl,
Rose from the shelter of a drift that lay
Against the bushes, crying, “God!  O God,
O my good God, He sends us help at last.”

Then looking hard upon her, came to him
The power to feel and to perceive.  Her teeth
Chattered, and all her limbs with shuddering failed,
And in her threadbare shawl was wrapped a child
That looked on him with wondering, wistful eyes.

“I thought to freeze,” the girl broke out with tears;
“Kind sir, kind sir,” and she held out the child,
As praying him to take it; and he did;
And gave to her the shawl, and swathed his charge
In the foldings of his plaid; and when it thrust
Its small round face against his breast, and felt
With small red hands for warmth,—­unbearable
Pains of great pity rent his straitened heart,
For the poor upland dwellers had been out
Since morning dawn, at early milking-time,
Wandering and stumbling in the drift.  And now,
Lamed with a fall, half crippled by the cold,
Hardly prevailed his arm to drag her on,
That ill-clad child, who yet the younger child
Had motherly cared to shield.  So toiling through
The great white storm coming, and coming yet. 
And coming till the world confounded sat
With all her fair familiar features gone,
The mountains muffled in an eddying swirl,
He led or bore them, and the little one
Peered from her shelter, pleased; but oft would mourn
The elder, “They will beat me:  O my can,
I left my can of milk upon the moor.” 
And he compared her trouble with his own,
And had no heart to speak.  And yet ’twas keen;
It filled her to the putting down of pain
And hunger,—­what could his do more? 
                                     He brought
The children to their home, and suddenly
Regained himself, and wondering at himself,
That he had borne, and yet been dumb so long,
The weary wailing of the girl:  he paid
Money to buy her pardon; heard them say,
“Peace, we have feared for you; forget the milk,
It is no matter!” and went forth again
And waded in the snow, and quietly
Considered in his patience what to do
With all the dull remainder of his days.