But it was of no avail. Cosmo could keep
himself warm enough in the open air, or if he could not, he did not
mind; but to be cold in bed was more than he would willingly
endure. He got up again--with an idea. Why should he not amuse
himself, rather than lie shivering on couch inhospitable? When
anything disturbed him of a summer night, as a matter of course he
got up and went out; and although naturally he was less inclined on
such a night as this, when the rooks would be tumbling dead from
the boughs of the fir-trees, he yet would, rather than lie
sleepless with cold.
On the opposite side of the court, in a gap between the stable and
the byre, the men had heaped up the snow from the rest of the yard,
and in the heap Cosmo had been excavating. For snow-balling he had
little inclination, but the snow as a plastic substance, a thing
that could be compelled into shapes, was an endless delight to him,
and in connection with this mound he had conceived a new fancy,
which, this very night, but for the interruption of their visitors,
he would already have put to the test.
Into the middle of the mound he had bored a tunnel, and then
hollowed out what I may call a negative human shape--the mould, as
it were, of a man, of life-size, with his arms thrown out, and his
feet stretched straight, like one that had fallen, and lay in
weariness. His object was to illuminate it, in the hope of "a man
all light, a seraph man," shining through the snow.
Pages:
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170