CHAPTER VII.—WITHIN AN ACE.
On that day certain imperative business demanded my presence in the lawyer's quarter of the town. I had been summoned, in short, to appear as a witness in a litigation that was pending in the Court of Common Pleas—a summons which I felt myself the more disposed to obey inasmuch as a penalty of two hundred and fifty dollars attached to contempt of it. Therefore, despite the unprecedented brutality of the weather, and against the earnest remonstrances of Josephine and Miriam, I was foolhardy enough to venture out.
The clock on our drawing-room mantel marked a few minutes before ten when I left the house, my immediate destination being the Jefferson Street Station of the Overhead Railway—distant not more than a quarter of a mile from my own door, and in ordinary circumstances an easy five minutes' walk.
However, it must be remembered, I was at that time within a few months of completing my seventieth year; and such a storm was raging, and such a gale blowing, as might have strained the mettle of a youngster one third my age: a veritable tempest, indeed, the like of which Adironda had never in the memory of man experienced before. The mercury stood below zero Fahrenheit; the wind was travelling at the pace of sixty miles an hour; and the snow was falling in such unheard of quantities as to obscure the air like fog. I don't mind owning, therefore, that I was pretty badly exhausted when I arrived at my journey's end, and that I had consumed a good half-hour in the process of getting there.
My path, as it were, had led through one continuous and unbroken drift, knee-deep at its shallowest, waist-high at its average, and frequently engulphing me up to my chin. Through this I had dug and ploughed my way, with the wind cold and furious in my teeth, and under a running fire of snow-flakes, frozen so hard, and driven with such force, that they stung my face like bird-shot, and nearly put out my eyes. I can assure the reader that it was no child's play. My nose and ears, from burning as if in a bath of scalding water, had become numb and rigid, like features of wood. The moisture from my breath had congealed in my beard, until that appendage felt like an iron mask. My legs were stiff and heavy. My shoulders ached. My respiration had become painful and laborious; my heart-action so faint as to induce sickness similar to that which one suffers at sea.
And finally, to cap the climax, when I reached the station, I found a chain stretched across the entrance to the booking-office, and a placard announcing that no trains were running! So that I had earned my labour for my pains; and there was nothing for me to do but to turn my face back toward home, and retrace my steps.
Exhausted as I was, then, I set forth at once upon that undertaking. Of course, it was excessively imprudent for me to do so, without first seeking shelter in some public house, and resting there until I had got warmed through, and in a measure recovered my strength. But I suppose I did not realise at the moment how far gone I was; and the prospect of regaining the comfort of my own fireside was a deliciously tempting one. So off I started, down Jefferson Street, towards Myrtle Avenue.
Very soon, however, I had reason to repent my rashness. A hundred yards or thereabouts from the corner, a mountainous drift of snow stretched diagonally across the road. I was half blinded; my wits were half frozen; I underestimated both its depth and its width, and plunged boldly into it.
Next instant I found myself buried up to my neck.
I struggled to push on. My legs were as immovable as if bound with ropes.
Then I strove to dig myself free with my hands. My arms, too, I learned, were pinioned as in a strait-waistcoat.
Here was a pleasant predicament, and one that constantly increased in interest; for, to say nothing of the deadly and aggressive cold, the snow was pouring down upon me by the bucket-full; and I appreciated very vividly the fact that unless I speedily effected an escape, I should be covered over my head.
My only hope, it was obvious, lay in calling for assistance. Whether other human beings were within hearing distance or not, I had no means of discovering; for, so opaque was the atmosphere rendered by the multitude of snow-flakes that filled it, I could see nothing beyond a radius of two or three yards; and even the houses that lined the street were indistinguishable, except when, by fits and starts, for a second at a time, the wind rent asunder the veil that hid them. Nevertheless, my only hope lay in trying the experiment of a cry for help; and that accordingly I did, with the utmost energy I could command:
“Help! help!”
But at the sound of my voice, my heart sank. It was the still, small ghost of itself, to such a degree had the exposure and the hardship of the last half-hour depleted my physical resources; and besides, dampened by the blanket of snow in which I was enveloped, and lost in the roar of the hurricane, the likelihood that it would carry beyond a rod in any direction seemed infinitesimally slight.
“Well, I am lost,” thought I. “Here, not five hundred yards from my own doorstep, lost as hopelessly as if wrecked in mid-ocean. Ah, well! they say death by freezing is comparatively painless. Anyhow, it will soon be over. Yet——”
Suddenly, with the desperate unreasonableness of a man in extremities—like him who, drowning, clutches at a chip—I repeated my feeble signal of distress: “Help! help!”
I waited half a minute, and then repeated it for a third time: “Help!”
Conceive my emotions, to hear instantly, and from immediately behind me, the response, in the lustiest of baritones: “Hello, there!”
“Heaven be praised!” I gasped. Then: “Can you help me out of this drift?”
“That remains to be tried,” came the reply. “I shouldn't wonder, though.”
And therewith I felt myself seized by two strong arms, lifted bodily from off my feet, and a moment later set down upon a spot of the pavement which the wind had swept clean, where I had a chance to see and to thank mv rescuer.