ilt by us boys out of a
drift in the minister's glebe, a drift--judging by the steeple, which
was sixty--about twenty feet high--and purer than any marble. The roof
was all strewed with diamonds, which frost saved from the sun. The porch
of the palace was pillared--and the character of the building outside
was, without any servile imitation--for we worked in the glow of
original genius, and none of us had then ever seen itself or its
picture--wonderfully like the Parthenon. Entering, you found yourself in
a superb hall, lighted up--not with gas, for up to that era gas had not
been used except in Pandemonium--but with a vast multitude of farthing
candles, each in a turnip stuck into the wall--while a chandelier of
frozen snow-branches pendent from the roof set that presence-chamber in
a blaze. On a throne at the upper end sat young Christopher North--then
the king of boys, as now of men--and proud were his subjects to do him
homage. In niches all around the sidewalls were couches covered with
hare, rabbit, foumart, and fox's skins--furnished by these animals slain
by us in the woods and among the rocks of that sylvan and moorland
parish--the regal Torus alone being spread with the dun-deer's hide from
Lochiel Forest in Lochaber. Then old airs were sung--in sweet single
voice--or in full chorus that startled the wandering night traveller on
his way to the lone Kings-well; and then in the intermediate hush, old
tales were told "of goblin, ghost, or fairy," or of Wallace Wight at the
Barns of Ayr or the Brig o' Stirling--or, a glorious outlaw, harbouring
in caves among the Cartlane Craigs--or of Robert Bruce the Deliverer, on
his shelty cleaving in twain the skull of Bohun the English knight, on
his thundering war-steed, armed cap-a-pie, while the King of Scotland
had nothing on his unconquered head but his plain golden crown. Tales of
the Snow-house! Had we but the genius to recall you to life in undying
song!

Nor was our frozen hall at times uncheered by the smiles of beauty. With
those smiles was heard the harmless love-whisper, and the harmless kiss
of love; for the cottages poured forth their little lasses in
flower-like bands, nor did their parents fear to trust them in the fairy
frozen palace, where Christopher was king. Sometimes the old people
themselves came to see the wonders of the lamp, and on a snow-table
stood a huge bowl--not of snow--steaming with nectar that made Hyems
smile as he hung his beard over the