He came from foddering the cattle in the barn, and from the field,
where he had been ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it
impossible to draw a furrow. He greeted us in pretty much the same
tone as if he were speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron
tobacco-box, pulled off his wet cowhide boots, and sat down before
the fire in his stocking-feet. The steam arose from his soaked
garments, so that the stout yeoman looked vaporous and spectre-like.
"Well, folks," remarked Silas, "you'll be wishing yourselves back to
town again, if this weather holds."
And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell
silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or sable flakes
intermingling themselves with the fast-descending snow. The storm,
in its evening aspect, was decidedly dreary. It seemed to have
arisen for our especial behoof,--a symbol of the cold, desolate,
distrustful phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of
adventurous enterprises, to warn us back within the boundaries of
ordinary life.
But our courage did not quail. We would not allow ourselves to be
depressed by the snowdrift trailing past the window, any more than if
it had been the sigh of a summer wind among rustling boughs. There
have been few brighter seasons for us than that. If ever men might
lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their wildest visions
without dread of laughter or scorn on the part of the audience,--yes,
and speak of earthly happiness, for themselves and mankind, as an
object to be hopefully striven for, and probably attained, we who
made that little semicircle round the blazing fire were those very
men.
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