th it like
a feather, it was not deep enough to drown him by submersion, but
it rolled him over and over again, and knocked him against rocks and
stones, and would infallibly have destroyed him, but that a sudden sharp
turn in the current drove him, at last, against a projecting tree, which
he clutched, and drew himself out with infinite difficulty. But when he
tried to walk, his limbs gave way; and he sank fainting on the ground,
and the remorseless snow soon covered his prostrate body.

All this time, Grace Carden was kneeling on the snow, and was, literally
a heap of snow. She was patient and composed now, and felt a gentle
sleep stealing over.

That sleep would have been her death.

But, all of a sudden something heavy touched her clothes, and startled
her, and two dark objects passed her.

They were animals.

In a moment it darted through her mind that animals are wiser than
man in some things. She got up with difficulty, for her limbs were
stiffened, and followed them.

The dark forms struggled on before. They knew the ground, and soon took
her to the edge of that very stream into which Coventry had fallen.

They all three went within a yard of Mr. Coventry, and still they
pursued their way; and Grace hoped they were making for some shelter.
She now called aloud to Mr. Coventry, thinking he must be on before her.
But he had not recovered his senses.

Unfortunately, the cry startled the sheep, and they made a rush, and
she could not keep up with them: she toiled, she called, she prayed for
strength; but they left her behind, and she could see their very forms
no more. Then she cried out in agony, and still, with that power
of self-excitement, which her sex possess in an eminent degree, she
struggled on and on, beyond her strength till, at last, she fell down
from sheer exhaustion, and the snow fell fast upon her body.

But, even as she lay, she heard a tinkling. She took it for sheep-bells,
and started up once more, and once more cried to Mr. Coventry; and
this time he heard her, and shook off his deadly lethargy, and tried to
hobble toward her voice.

Meantime, Grace struggled toward the sound, and lo, a light was before
her, a light gleaming red and dullish in the laden atmosphere. With her
remnant of life and strength, she dashed at it, and found a wall in her
way. She got over it somehow, and saw the light quite close, and heard
the ringing of steel on steel.

She cried out for help, for she felt