mer's noon, and the
terrific ice-fields and hills to be crashing against the solid earth
that we sat upon, and all things round changed to the far-off stormy
ocean and boundless frozen wastes.

The planter began to speak again:--

"So I failed right down upon th' ice, sayun, 'Lard, help me! Lard, help
me!' an' crawlun away, wi' the snow in my face, (I was afeard, a'most,
to stand,) 'Lard, help me! Lard, help me!'

"'T was n' all hard ice, but many places lolly;[H] an once I goed right
down wi' my hand-wristes an' my armes in cold water, part-ways to the
bottom o' th' ocean; and a'most head-first into un, as I'd a-been in wi'
my legs afore: but, thanks be to God! 'E helped me out of un, but colder
an' wetter agen.

[Footnote H: Snow in water, not yet frozen, but looking like
the white ice.]

"In course I wanted to folly the schooner; so I runned up along, a
little ways from the edge, an' then I runned down along: but 't was all
great black ocean outside, an' she gone miles an' miles away; an' by two
hours' time, even ef she'd come to, itself, an' all clear weather, I
could n' never see her; an' ef she could come back, she could n' never
find me, more'n I could find any one o' they flakes o' snow. The
schooner was gone, an' I was laved out o' the world!

"Bumby, when I got on the big field agen, I stood up on my feet, an' I
sid that was my ship! She had n' e'er a sail, an' she had n' e'er a
spar, an' she had n' e'er a compass, an' she had n' e'er a helm, an' she
had n' no hold, an' she had n' no cabin. I could n' sail her, nor I
could n' steer her, nor I could n' anchor her, nor bring her to, but she
would go, wind or calm, an' she'd never come to port, but out in th'
ocean she'd go to pieces! I sid 't was so, an' I must take it, an' do my
best wi' it. 'T was jest a great, white, frozen raft, driftun bodily
away, wi' storm blowun over, an' current runnun under, an' snow comun
down so thick, an' a poor Christen laved all alone wi' it. 'T would
drift as long as anything was of it, an' 't was n' likely there'd be any
life in the poor man by time th' ice goed to nawthun; an' the swiles
'ould swim back agen up to the Nothe!

"I was th' only one, seemunly, to be cast out alive, an' wi' the dearest
maid in the world (so I thought) waitun for me. I s'pose 'ee might ha'
knowed somethun better, Sir; but I was n' larned, an' I ran so fast as
ever I could up the way I thowt home was, an' I groaned, an' groaned,
an' s