That got a chuckle; but then he thought her face went uncertain and a little sad in the white-flecked dimness. "And it gets more that way all the time; more like remembering a dream." More cheerfully: "But they do go on about it a lot, don't they? Even Dad."

There were more nods and mutters of agreement.

"Hey, I heard that!"

Chuck's voice came out of the snow-shot darkness. Rolling eyes and sighs were the younger generation's only defense against tales of the days before the Change. There wasn't much point in talking about it among themselves.

"Let's have a song!" Rudi said instead.

That brought enthusiastic agreement; it usually would, among a group of Mackenzies. They passed a few moments arguing over what tune, which was also to be expected. At last, exasperated, Rudi simply began himself and waited for the others to join in:

"The greenwood sighs and shudders

The westwind wails and mutters-"

There were a few complaints, but the song matched the weather, and most of the youngsters took it up with bloodthirsty enthusiasm:

"Gray clouds crawl across the sky

The moon hides herjace as the sunlight dies!

And mankind soon shall realize

The Bringer of Storms walks tonight!

No mortal dare to meet the glare

Of the Eye of the Stormbringer

For he is the lightning slinger

The glory singer, The gallows reaper!"

The road wound along between the muddy, reaped potato fields and truck gardens covered in mulch of wheat-straw and sawdust and spoiled hay; a whiff of manure came from beneath. A rime of ice was forming in the puddles along the water-furrow from the pond that watered them in the summer; they tramped on over the plank bridge, then past fenced and hedged pastures, and other fields where the stems of the winter oats bowed beneath the wet snowflakes.