t inappropriate to an invalid about to begin
the fifth act in a roystering night's adventure. And still once
more:--

Cold blows the winter wind; 'tis Love,
Whose sweet eyes swim with honeyed tears,
That bears me to thy doors, my love,
Tossed by the storm of hopes and fears.

Cold blows the blast of aching Love;
But be thou for my wandering sail,
Adrift upon these waves of love,
Safe harbour from the whistling gale!

However, upon this occasion, though we had winter-wind enough, and
cold enough, there was not much love in the business. My arm was
firmly clenched in Christian Buol's, and Christian Palmy came
behind, trolling out songs in Italian dialect, with still recurring
_canaille_ choruses, of which the facile rhymes seemed mostly
made on a prolonged _amu-u-u-r_. It is noticeable that Italian
ditties are specially designed for fellows shouting in the streets at
night. They seem in keeping there, and nowhere else that I could ever
see. And these Davosers took to them naturally when the time for Comus
came. It was between four and five in the morning, and nearly all the
houses in the place were dark. The tall church-tower and spire loomed
up above us in grey twilight. The tireless wind still swept thin
snow from fell and forest. But the frenzied bells had sunk into their
twelvemonth's slumber, which shall be broken only by decorous tollings
at less festive times. I wondered whether they were tingling still
with the heart-throbs and with the pressure of those many arms? Was
their old age warmed, as mine was, with that gust of life--the young
men who had clung to them like bees to lily-bells, and shaken all
their locked-up tone and shrillness into the wild winter air? Alas!
how many generations of the young have handled them; and they are
still there, frozen in their belfry; and the young grow middle-aged,
and old, and die at last; and the bells they grappled in their lust
of manhood toll them to their graves, on which the tireless wind will,
winter after winter, sprinkle snow from alps and forests which they
knew.

'There is a light,' cried Christian, 'up in Anna's window!' 'A light!
a light!' the Comus shouted. But how to get at the window, which is
pretty high above the ground, and out of reach of the most ardent
revellers? We search a neighbouring shed, extract a stable-ladder, and
in two seconds Palmy has climbed to the topmost rung, while Christian
and Georg hold it firm upon the snow benea