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A strong and bitter wind from the north blew down the valley with occasional spits and snatches of snow, not enough as yet to whiten the heights, but prophesying a wild night and a heavy fall. The blasts in the desolate upper reach of the dale were so fierce that a shepherd on the path leading over the pass to Marly Head could scarcely hold himself upright against them.
Being in range of the Federal guns from Fort Negley, we were not allowed to have fires at night, and our thin and ragged blankets were but poor protection against the cold, raw blasts of December weather the coldest ever known.
Occasionally the stage would rattle into a village, the driver giving warning blasts upon his long tin horn that he claimed the right of way, and then dash up to a wayside inn, before which would be in waiting a fresh team of horses to take the place of those which had drawn the coach from the previous stopping-place.
But did not he in his own person represent the triumph of that American creed of opportunity? He, too, had been through the fire, had sweated beside the blasts, had handled the ingots of steel. He was one of the "fittest" who had survived, and looked it. Had he no memories of the terrors of that struggle?... Adolf Scherer had grown to be a giant.
More than ever he longed to see and to know, to make acquaintance with the actual presence, whereof they were but the forerunners, the cold blasts that go before the storm, the vague, mystical draperies which veiled the unearthly goddess at whose shrine he was a worshipper.
How in the hollows of the hills every harsh tone died away, and all the softer notes flowed to and fro in tenderest music, and fainted in distant reverberations more and more exquisite, more and more exquisitely low. Can it be a mere echo of those rude blasts?
He also soon learned to jump quickly whenever brakes were called for by a single short whistle blast from the locomotive, and to throw them off at the order of the two short blasts that called for brakes to be loosened. At first he thought it curious that the other brakemen should run along the tops of the cars, and wondered why they were always in such a hurry.
The bellows-maker proclaims the honor of his art, by observing, he alone produces that instrument which commands the winds; his soft breeze, like that of the south, counter-acts the chill blasts of winter: by his efforts, like those of the sun, the world receives light: he creates when he pleases, and gives breath when he creates.
They flew forth like the blasts of some fierce wind that strike earth in the van of a thunderstorm they buffet the salt sea into an uproar; many and mighty are the great waves that come crashing in one after the other upon the shore with their arching heads all crested with foam even so did rank behind rank of Trojans arrayed in gleaming armour follow their leaders onward.
The poor fugitives, starving, weary, and chilled by the cold spring blasts, gazed down upon the ample fire; and the savory meats which the squaws were cooking by it, but felt no temptation to purchase warmth and food by surrendering themselves to captivity. Death in the forest seemed preferable. They turned and fled back upon their track, expecting every moment to hear the yells of pursuers.
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