'Yes,' said Faith, after listening a moment; 'it must be the blast of a trumpet.'
'It may be our pursuers!' cried Oswald. 'Let us hasten back to our asylum.'
He now turned quickly about with Faith, and, rather bearing than leading her, hastened to retrace the path by which they had come. Before proceeding far on their return, they were met by a colder and sharper wind, and the snow which it blew from the summits of the rocks involved them in a white fleecy cloud.
'Alas, Oswald, I can no longer see,' complained Faith.
'It is but little better with me,' answered Oswald, groping after the path to the right, which he supposed to be the one he should take. Still sharper blew the wind as the storm rapidly approached, and the dark gray mountain-clouds lashed the immense rocks with their mighty wings, sending down their accumulated snows upon the heads of the poor wanderers. Still more wildly rushed and whistled and howled the winds among the rocks, in strangely horrible tones, and in the midst of the uproar they distinguished the sounds of distant rolling thunder and the flashes of lightning in the low dark clouds. In this struggle of the elements, all the summits and other landmarks which Oswald had noted to guide his returning steps, had completely disappeared, and at length he impatiently cried: 'I have lost the way. Why was I weak enough to yield to the wishes of a child!'
'Chide not, dear Oswald,' entreated Faith, submissively. 'I will willingly endure every hardship which is suffered with you.'
'That is what distresses me,' said Oswald. 'Were I alone, I should enjoy this storm instead of trembling at it; for nature appears to me most beautiful in anger, and I have already been compelled to expose this brow to many a wild tempest. My anxiety for you troubles me. If your health should be injured by this exposure I should be inconsolable, and have only my own thoughtlessness to blame for it.'
A brighter flash and louder report now put it beyond doubt that a terrible storm was at hand. The echoes thundered among the rocks, now nearer and now farther off, until they finally died away in indistinct murmurs.
'A thunderstorm in winter!' cried the trembling Faith. 'That is doubly horrible.'
'Who knows that this tempest may not bring a blessing; and certainly it cannot do much harm here among these old rocks,' said Oswald by way of consoling her, still continuing to advance at random.