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CHAPTER FORTY ONE
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Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Joe caught an excited negro by the collar as he rushed past.“Go tell Burnam to send some men down to the road right away to look after that spirits!” he cried, and darted himself in the direction of the threatened barrels.The platform was eighty yards from the edge of the camp, and pines screened it from the glare of the fire. Three of the heavy posts that supported it stood in the stream, which formed a sort of pool among them. To Joe’s relief, everything seemed blindly dark. The flood of fire had not yet come down, but he had scarcely reached the spot when a lump of blazing, unmelted rosin came drifting down, and lodged right against one of the pine posts. He thrust it under water and extinguished it; but within a minute several more lumps came flaming down, followed by a stream of burning fluid that hissed and smoked on the surface of the running water.Joe had picked up a shovel as he ran down, and now he cautiously flung sand on the water. Fire spattered fiercely in all directio
Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY THREE
The next minute Burnam had wheeled and was rushing toward his men, arms raised, shouting vehemently. Joe stood for a moment as if paralyzed; he made a step to follow Burnam; a flood of wild words rushed into his mouth; but then he stopped. This was no time for an altercation. But he would not lift another finger, he said to himself, to keep the whole camp from burning up; and, boiling with rage, he went straight to Wilson’s house, where he boarded. He almost regretted his efforts to save the turpentine.Nobody was in the house. Every one was out at the fire, which was mainly at the other side of the camp and at a safe distance. But the red light shone through all the windows, making a lamp unnecessary, and by the glare Joe went to his room and began to get out his possessions and pack them in his trunk. His first idea was that he would leave the camp that very hour.But this would be hardly practicable. He would leave the first thing in the morning. The more he thought of Burnam’s incr
Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love, health and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding, naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners of the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who, looking on all though or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare you for seeing the loose pa
Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
It is but by the diversity of impressions or of effects which substances or bodies make upon us, that we feel them, that we have perceptions and ideas of them, that we distinguish them one from another, that we assign to them peculiarities. Moreover, in order to perceive or to feel an object, this object must act upon our organs; this object can not act upon us without exciting some motion in us; it can not produce any motion in us if it is not itself in motion. As soon as I see an object, my eyes must be struck by it; I can not conceive of light and of vision without a motion in the luminous, extended, and colored body which communicates itself to my eye, or which acts upon my retina. As soon as I smell a body, my olfactory nerve must be irritated or put into motion by the parts exhaled from an odorous body. As soon as I hear a sound, the tympanum of my ear must be struck by the air put in motion by a sonorous body, which could not act if it was not moved of itself. From which it foll
Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY SIX
If Christmas this sad year is to be a real comfort and help to us, we must realize very clearly what it is that was the cause of the joy of the Angels, and has been always the source of the true joy of Christmas, during the nineteen hundred years or more since that first outburst of heavenly praise and song. The reason had been announced by one Angel to the shepherds abiding in the fields in the words, “Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” The Jewish people were looking and longing for the Christ Who would come, as is expressed in Zacharias’ song,[2] to deliver them from the hand of their enemies, and to grant unto them that they “might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of their life.” This was the promise which, as Zacharias said, had been given by the mouth of God’s prophets since the world began, f
Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Five-o’clock tea was a great institution in Oldfield.It was a form of refreshment to which the female inhabitants of that delightful place were strongly addicted. In vain did Dr. Weatherby, the great authority in all that concerned the health of the neighborhood, lift up his voice against the mild feminine dram-drinking of these modern days, denouncing it in no measured terms: the ladies of Oldfield listened incredulously, and, softly quoting Cowper’s lines as to the “cup that cheers and not inebriates,” still presided over their dainty little tea-tables, and vied with one another in the beauty of their china and the flavor of their highly-scented Pekoe.In spite of Dr. Weatherby’s sneers and innuendoes, a great deal of valuable time was spent in lingering in one or another of the pleasant drawing-rooms of the place. As the magic hour approached, people dropped in casually. The elder ladies sipped their tea and gossiped softly; the younger ones, if it were summer-time, strolled out th
Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
They had marched more than thirty kilometres since dawn, along the white, hot road where occasional thickets of trees threw a moment of shade, then out into the glare again. On either hand, the valley, wide and shallow, glittered with heat; dark green patches of rye, pale young corn, fallow and meadow and black pine woods spread in a dull, hot diagram under a glistening sky. But right in front the mountains ranged across, pale blue and very still, snow gleaming gently out of the deep atmosphere. And towards the mountains, on and on, the regiment marched between the rye fields and the meadows, between the scraggy fruit trees set regularly on either side the high road. The burnished, dark green rye threw on a suffocating heat, the mountains drew gradually nearer and more distinct. While the feet of the soldiers grew hotter, sweat ran through their hair under their helmets, and their knapsacks could burn no more in contact with their shoulders, but seemed instead to give off a cold, prick
Of Frost and Fire CHAPTER FORTY NINE
Mr. Murchison was dead. The villagers announced the fact to each other with bated breath as they gazed with reverent awe at the crape on the door.“Poor man,” they sighed, vaguely sympathetic; “it’s well enough with him now, but there’s the children.”“Ay, there’s the children,” more than one responded feelingly.Mr. Murchison had been the rector of the small parish of Barnley, distant perhaps a hundred miles from the city of C——, the great commercial center of the West, and having attended faithfully to his duties for a series of years, had been stricken at last with the dread pangs of consumption. Two years of painful waiting had passed away, and now the release had come. Devout, patient, and faithful, who could doubt that it was well with him?“God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” tremblingly spoke the clergyman who had been summoned to conduct the burial service. “Surely He will so influence the hearts of His people that these bereft ones, these fatherless and motherless childr
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