lying on the road, helpless, shivering, and hardly having wherewithal
to cover his nakedness? I pitied the poor soul; though I felt the
severity of the air myself, I threw my mantle over him, and
immediately I heard a voice from the heavens, blessing me for that
piece of charity, saying,--

"You will be rewarded, my son, for this in time."

I went on: night and darkness overtook me. No village was to be seen.
The country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the
road.

Tired, I alighted, and fastened my horse to something like a pointed
stump of a tree, which appeared above the snow; for the sake of safety
I placed my pistols under my arm, and lay down on the snow, where I
slept so soundly that I did not open my eyes till full daylight. It is
not easy to conceive my astonishment to find myself in the midst of a
village, lying in a churchyard; nor was my horse to be seen, but I
heard him soon after neigh somewhere above me. On looking upwards I
beheld him hanging by his bridle to the weathercock of the steeple.
Matters were now very plain to me: the village had been covered with
snow over night; a sudden change of weather had taken place; I had
sunk down to the churchyard whilst asleep, gently, and in the same
proportion as the snow had melted away; and what in the dark I had
taken to be a stump of a little tree appearing above the snow, to
which I had tied my horse, proved to be the cross or weathercock of
the steeple!

Without long consideration I took one of my pistols, shot the bridle
in two, brought down the horse, and proceeded on my journey. [Here the
baron seems to have forgotten his feelings; he should certainly have
ordered his horse a feed of corn, after fasting so long.]

He carried me well--advancing into the interior parts of Russia. I
found traveling on horseback rather unfashionable in winter, therefore
I submitted, as I always do, to the custom of the country, took a
single horse sledge, and drove briskly towards St. Petersburg. I do
not exactly recollect whether it was in Eastland or Jugemanland, but I
remember that in the midst of a dreary forest I spied a terrible wolf
making after me, with all the speed of ravenous winter hunger. He soon
overtook me. There was no possibility of escape. Mechanically I laid
myself down flat in the sledge, and let my horse run for our safety.
What I wished, but hardly hoped or expected, happened immediately
after. The wolf did not mind me in the lea