Fiction > Book editions > London, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

323 THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE.
monstrous boulders ; the peaks (as I say) silver, for already
at the higher altitudes the snow fell nightly ; but the
woods and the low ground only breathed upon with
frost. All day heaven had been charged with ugly
vapourS; in the which the sun swam and glimmered like
a shilling piece ; all day the wind blew on our left cheek
barbarous cold, but very pui'e to breathe. With the end
of the afternoon, however, the wind fell ; the clouds,
being no longer reinforced, were scattered or drunk
up ; the sun set behind us with some wintry splendour,
and the white brow of the mountains shared its dying
glow.
It was dark ere we had supper ; we ate in silence, and
the meal was scarce despatched before my lord slunk
from the fireside to the margin of the camp ; whither
I made haste to follow him. The camp was on high
ground, overlooking a frozen lake, perhaps a mile in its
longest measurement ; all about us, the forest lay in
heights and hollows ; above rose the white mountains ;
and higher yet, the moon rode in a fair sky. There was
no breath of air ; nowhere a twig creaked ; and the
sounds of our own camp were hushed and swallowed up
in the surrounding stillness. Now that the sun and the
wind were both gone down, it appeared almost warm,
like a night of July : a singular illusion of the sense,
when earth, air, and water were strained to bursting
with the extremity of frost.
My lord (or what I still continued to call by his loved