DRIFTING SNOW.
But now that I have got snugly stowed away in warmth, I am far from sorry for the adventure. My motive in going out was to get a full view of the storm. The snow which has lately fallen is very deep, and the wind, picking it up from hill-side and valley, seemed to fill the whole atmosphere with a volume of flying whiteness. It streamed over the mountains, and gleamed like witches' hair along their summits. Great clouds rushed frantically down the slopes, and spun over the cliffs in graceful forms of fantastic lightness, and thence whirled out over the frozen sea,glimmering in the moonbeams. The fierce wind-gusts brought a vast sheet of it from the terraces, which, after bounding over the schooner and rattling through the rigging, flew out over the icy plain, wound coldly around the icebergs which studded its surface, and, dancing and skipping past me like cloud-born phantoms of the night, flew out into the distant blackness, mingling unearthly voices with the roar of booming waves.
And as I think of this wild, wild scene, my thoughts are in the midst of it with my servant Peter. The stiffened ropes which pound against the masts, the wind shrieking through the shrouds, the crashing of the snows against the schooner's sides, are sounds of terror echoing through the night; and when I think that this unhappy boy is a prey to the piercing gale, I find myself inquiring continually, What could possibly have been the motive which led him thus to expose himself to its fury?
COURAGE.
After all, what is that which we call courage? This poor savage, who would not hesitate to attack single-handed the fierce polar bear, who has now voluntarily faced a danger than which none could be more dreadful, fleeing out into the darkness, over the mountains and glaciers, and through snow-drifts and storms, pursued by fear, lacks the resolution to face an imaginary harm from his fellow-men. It seems, indeed, to be a peculiarity of uninstructed minds to dread man's anger and man's treachery more than all other evils,—whether of wild beast or storm or pestilence.