Birds like the rook, which fed upon worms, were
nearly starved, and were driven far and wide for strange food. It was
pitiable to see them trying to pick the soil of the meadow as hard as a
rock. The everlasting glare was worse than the gloom of winter, and the
sense of universal parching thirst became so distressing that the house
was preferred to the fields. We were close to a water famine! The
Atlantic, the source of all life, was asleep, and what if it should
never wake! We know not its ways, it mocks all our science. Close to
us lies this great mystery, incomprehensible, and yet our very breath
depends upon it. Why should not the sweet tides of soft moist air cease
to stream in upon us? No reason could be given why every green herb and
living thing should not perish; no reason, save a faith which was blind.
For aught we KNEW, the ocean-begotten aerial current might forsake the
land and it might become a desert.
One night grey bars appeared in the western sky, but they had too often
deluded us, and we did not believe in them.
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