Harding of Allenwood by Harold Bindloss

It was a bitter evening. The snow on the crests of the rises glittered like steel; the hollows were sharply picked out in blue. The frost was pitiless, and a strong breeze whipped up clouds of dry snow and drove them in swirls across the plain. A half moon, harshly bright, hung low above the western horizon, and the vast stretch of sky that domed in the prairie was sprinkled with stars.

Harding and Devine were on their way to attend a council meeting at the Grange. Wrapped, as they were, in the thick driving-robe, with their fur caps pulled well down, they could not keep warm. The cold of the icy haze seemed to sear the skin. Harding's woolen-mittened hand was numbed on the reins, and he feared that it was getting frostbitten.