The Democratic advocate., 1885-04-18
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A CRTMBAN SNOW STORM


1t was my wife who spoke. My cousin
Hal and | were setting down to comfor-
table smoke in my den; and her warning
voice fell on unheeded hears. Hal, big
bronzed athlete, with gray hair round a
youngish face, was spending short holiday
at my place in the country, and this night
was likely to be the last he and | would
have to ourselves, for already the golden
leaves had huttered down from the trees,
and on the morrow guests would fill the
coverts with the rattle of smooth-bores and
wake the echoes in the old house with their
merriment. Hal had only just returned
from Kimberly, free from the troubles Of
impecuniosity for the rest Of his natural
life, but not, l thought, so bright and
CHEEKY as he should have been. The smile
I used to know so well in those honest blue
eyes was never in them now, save for cour-
tesy's sake. So [ prepared to elicit from
him, if possible, the cause of the change
To my surprise he cut me short at once
'No, old fellow, you aren't to do any of the
talking tonight; that s my part of the bust
ness; you prepare to listen" And then
after a moment he deliberately filed his
pipe, got up and turned the key in the
door, and began again with "Will, do |
look like chap to commit murder? No;
YOU needn' answer, | know what you would
say, but for all that you are wrong-l did
almost commit one once, and am going to
tell you all about it"
Hal and had been school companions,
and, though l was his senior by a year or
two, he had been the hero of my school
days, and had retained his influence in our
after life.
Together we had grown up at his moth
er's knee, and when our relations told us
that the little store our fathers had left us
would not allow any longer stay at school,
and hinted that we had better be up and
doing, Hal and l had together elected to
try for cIerkships in the Indo- European
Telegraph Service. The pay was not very
great, but on the foreign stations it was
enough to live on; the work eight hours
out Of every "a was not repulsive in itself,
and the service gave US an opportunity OF
visiting strange lands.
Those were pleasant days at Kertch in
spite of our poverty l think one might
do worse than live them over again. But
at the end of two years we had tired of them,
and telegram received one 24th of De
cember informing me Of the death of rel
ative, which freed me forever from the
service of 'dot and dash, was eagerly
welcomed. There was no such luck for
Hal, but for all that when [ left Kertch he
determined to leave with me and seek en-
ployment elsewhere.
Hear the rest of the story from his own
lips: 10 years ago, after you had got your
lawyers telegram, how, when the first burst
of excitement had subsided, the dullness OF
the snow-buried town palled upon US, and
to think of passing our time in the ordina
ry way, loafng in the billiard-room of the
English Club or hanging on behind sledges
in the "Rue Woronzoff, y of whose fair oc
cupants we were heartily sick long since,
seemed out of the question? 1t was 4
O'Clock already, and the evening was fast
closing in Our thoughts had gone back
to the frelit homes of old England in the
twilight hour, and even the absence of an
open crate and its Pickering flames had
become a grievance to US. There was
nothing to do out of doors, nothing to do
within but pine for time when we might
escape from Kertch and its ennui. Every
book had been read and re-read, and even
the poor pleasure of constructing fancy
landscapes from the frost-work on the win
dow-panes had been tried and found
failure, for the bitter intensity of the cold
had swallowed up all the delicate tracery
of the earlier frosts in one solid sheet of
ice. 1t was then that you proposed that
mad shooting party which so nearly cost
you your life-how nearly | think you
have never yet guessed.
"No one but brace of mad Englishmen
would have dreamed of such thing but
we reveled in that epithet in those days,
loved hardships for their own sake, and
were too young and tough to come to much
grief.
$50 Paramon, our henehman, was called
from his slumbers in sheepskin on top of
the kitchen petchka, and sent grumbling
out into the night to order our trof ka, and
though the thermometer stood at eight
degrees Fahrenheit, and Michael Maximo-
witch, the postmaster, did all he dared to
thwart our purpose, yet in a little over an
hour the numbering open cart was at the
door, with its shaggy ponies and Tartar
yemschik The broad, silent streets, i'll
paved, half-lighted, were buried in snow
and sparkling with frost; the sky above was
a deep, strong violet color, looking bright
as fire and keen as ice, and the stars so
near that you could almost see the red flames
leaping in them Here and there under the
the white faced houses storoz (watchman)
covered in doorway, so mufied up in his
sheepskins as hardly to retain human out
line. Except for his voice and the hollow
sounding blows of his staff against the wall,
signals to the world that some one was on
guard in spite of the weather, not a sound
was to be heard Even the dogs of Kertch
were silent for once.
"Outside the town we set our sledge-
bells going, and their merry clatter and
the keen air stirred the life within US, woke
spirit of defiance to the silence that
brooded round us, and, for awhile, the
chorus of The Red, White and Blue woke
the witch hare from her nest in the snow
drift as we sped past.
But soon the frost laid its finger on our
lips and glued them together with icy bonds.
Our mustaches whitened and stiffened and
our eyelashes froze to our lids, until we
were glad to nestle into our wraps and be
silent
sThe lights of the town were soon out
of sight; the stars, too, had disappeared, and
again the ceaseless, silent snow fell around
us.
"Away to the west, over the low, rolling
steppeland, lay Sebastopol and our English
dead, among them your father and mine,
buried, as English officers are best buried,
deep with their men, The ruined city,
round which they fought, standing in ruins
still, its empty window-sashes and doorless
passages gazing blankly over the frozen sea
and low, snow-clad hills, is the most desc
late sight upon earth. Could it be that the
dead lying there tonight were at peace :?
Had they no longing, as l had, to hear the
happy Christmas bells of home ring out
! across the snow? Full as the earth and
water is of life, crowded with myriad forms
of sentient beings, it seemed hard to be-