It was not long before I managed to drain off this threatening flood, by opening the old sluice-hole; but I had much harder work to keep the stables, and the cow-house, and the other sheds, from flooding.  For we have a sapient practice (and I never saw the contrary round about our parts, I mean), of keeping all rooms underground, so that you step down to them.  We say that thus we keep them warmer, both for cattle and for men, in the time of winter, and cooler in the summer-time.  This I will not contradict, though having my own opinion; but it seems to me to be a relic of the time when people in the western countries lived in caves beneath the ground, and blocked the mouths with neat-skins.

Let that question still abide, for men who study ancient times to inform me, if they will; all I know is, that now we had no blessings for the system.  If after all their cold and starving, our weak cattle now should have to stand up to their knees in water, it would be certain death to them; and we had lost enough already to make us poor for a long time; not to speak of our kind love for them.  And I do assure you, I loved some horses, and even some cows for that matter, as if they had been my blood-relations; knowing as I did their virtues.  And some of these were lost to us; and I could not bear to think of them.  Therefore I worked hard all night to try and save the rest of them.

CHAPTER XLVI

SQUIRE FAGGUS MAKES SOME LUCKY HITS

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Through that season of bitter frost the red deer of the forest, having nothing to feed upon, and no shelter to rest in, had grown accustomed to our ricks of corn, and hay, and clover.  There we might see a hundred of them almost any morning, come for warmth, and food, and comfort, and scarce willing to move away.  And many of them were so tame, that they quietly presented themselves at our back door, and stood there with their coats quite stiff, and their flanks drawn in and panting, and icicles sometimes on their chins, and their great eyes fastened wistfully upon any merciful person; craving for a bit of food, and a drink of water; I suppose that they had not sense enough to chew the snow and melt it; at any rate, all the springs being frozen, and rivers hidden out of sight, these poor things suffered even more from thirst than they did from hunger.

But now there was no fear of thirst, and more chance indeed of drowning; for a heavy gale of wind arose, with violent rain from the south-west, which lasted almost without a pause for three nights and two days.  At first the rain made no impression on the bulk of snow, but ran from every sloping surface and froze on every flat one, through the coldness of the earth; and so it became impossible for any man to keep his legs without the help of a shodden staff.  After a good while, however, the air growing very much warmer,