d duty owed to his mother and
his sisters, to embark in trade. Not otherwise could he hope ever to
retrieve their fortunes--and for ten years for their sake he was a
slave, till ruin set him free. Now he was master of his own destiny--and
sought some humble hut in that magnificent scenery, where he might pass
a blameless life, and among earth's purest joys prepare his soul for
heaven. Many such humble huts had he seen during that one bold, bright,
beautiful spring winter-day. Each wreath of smoke from the breathing
chimneys, while the huts themselves seemed hardly awakened from sleep in
the morning-calm, led his imagination up into the profound peace of the
sky. In any one of those dwellings, peeping from sheltered dells, or
perched on wind-swept eminences, could he have taken up his abode, and
sat down contented at the board of their simple inmates. But in the very
delirium of a new bliss, the day faded before him--twilight looked
lovelier than dream-land in the reflected glimmer of the snow--and thus
had midnight found him, in a place so utterly lonesome in its remoteness
from all habitations, that even in summer no stranger sought it without
the guidance of some shepherd familiar with the many bewildering passes
that stretched away in all directions through among the mountains to
distant vales. No more fear or thought had he of being lost in the
wilderness, than the ring-dove that flies from forest to forest in the
winter season, and, without the aid even of vision, trusts to the
instinctive wafting of her wings through the paths of ether.

As he continued gazing on the heavens, the moon all at once lost
something of her brightness--the stars seemed fewer in number--and the
lustre of the rest as by mist obscured. The blue ethereal frame grew
discoloured with streaks of red and yellow--and a sort of dim darkness
deepened and deepened on the air, while the mountains appeared higher,
and at the same time further off, as if he had been transported in a
dream to another region of the earth. A sound was heard, made up of
far-mustering winds, echoes from caves, swinging of trees, and the
murmur as of a great lake or sea beginning to break on the shore. A few
flakes of snow touched his face, and the air grew cold. A clear tarn had
a few minutes before glittered with moonbeams, but now it had
disappeared. Sleet came thicker and faster, and ere long it was a storm
of snow. "O God! my last hour is come!" and scarcely did he hear