So in sharp, short steps the scholar’s thought strode on, and the sombre storming of the gale made an awful accompaniment to the pigmy’s strenuous musings.  Ferrier’s destiny was being settled in that cataclysm, had he only known it; his pride was smitten, and he was ready to “receive the kingdom of God as a little child,” to begin to learn on a level with the darkened fishermen whom he had gently patronized.  As soon as he had resolved that night on Self-abnegation, as soon as the lightning conviction of his own insignificance had flashed through him, he humbly but “boldly” came “to the Throne of Grace.”  Like every one else who thus draws near to God through the Saviour’s merit, he learned what it is to “obtain mercy”; a brooding calm took possession of his purified soul, and he was born again into a world where pride, egotism, angry revolt, and despair are unknown.

There would be no good in prolonging the story of this wrestle; there was a certain sameness in every phase, though the dangers seemed to change with such protean swiftness.  For three days it lasted, and on the third day Tom Lennard, Ferrier, the patients, and the crew, were far more interested in the steward’s efforts to boil coffee than they were in the arrowy flight of the snow-masses or the menace of towering seas.  Ferrier attended his men, and varied that employment by chatting with Lennard, who was now able to sit up.  Tom was much shaken and very solemn; he did not like talking of his late ordeal.

“Lewis, my dear friend, I have looked on the Eternal Majesty, and now death has no more terror for me.  He will hide me in the shadow of His wings.  I have seen what was known to them of old time; I knew when the gun seemed to go off inside my head, and I could feel nothing more, I knew that I should live:  and that was the last light I saw in this world until you saved me—­God bless you!  We won’t ever speak of it again.”

Thus spoke Tom, with a fluency and correctness of diction which surprised himself.  And he has never dilated on his mishap throughout his life so far.

It is not uncommon—­that same awe-stricken reticence.  This writer knows a man, a great scholar, a specimen of the best aristocratic class, a man fitted to charm both men and women.  Long ago, he and two others slid two thousand feet down an Alpine slope.  For two days and two nights the living man rested on a glacier—­tied to the dead.  “Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!” My subject knows all about this; he has gazed on the Unutterable, and he has never mentioned his soul-piercing experience to any creature.  There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

* * * * *

The worst of the ordeal was over; the snow ceased, the hurricane fined off, and only the turbulent water rushing in discoloured mountains under the last impetus of the wind—­only that cruel water persisted in violence.  It seemed as if for days the sea were sentient, and could not forget its long torture.  Then came a griping frost and a hard sky, with slight breeze and a quiet sea.