'
'Fish and deer, friend, see us purblind sons of men somewhat more
quickly than we see them, fear sharpening the senses. Perhaps, after
all, the fault is in your staring white-straw hat, a garment which
has spoilt many a good day's fishing. Ah, no! there is the cause;
the hat of a mightier than you--the thunder-spirit himself. Thor is
at hand, while the breeze, awe-stricken, falls dead calm before his
march. Behold, climbing above that eastern ridge, his huge powdered
cauliflower-wig, barred with a grey horizontal handkerchief of mist.'
'Oh, profane and uncomely simile!--which will next, I presume, liken
the coming hailstorm to hair-powder shaken from the said wig.'
'To shot rather than to powder. Flee, oh, flee to yonder pile of
crags, and thank your stars that there is one at hand; for these
mountain tornadoes are at once Tropic in their ferocity and Siberian
in their cutting cold.'
Down it came. The brown hills vanished in white sheets of hail,
first falling perpendicularly, then slanting and driving furiously
before the cold blast which issued from the storm.
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