Now it’s your turn. Do a complete rewrite of this passage. In a tough place, somebody struggles to get access to something and fails. Use expansions and gothic details.
On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.
