Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight
In sunshine and shadow
Journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of El Dorado.

Or from “The Mole of Marimolena”

I was turning fifty-odd when the everlasting God
Smote a path of molten gold across the blue,
Says, “There’s many million men would have done the like again,
But you didn’t, and, my man, there’s hope for you.

“Start sheets and sail for the Mole—­
For the old rotten Mole of Marimolena;
There’s maybe some one there
That you’re longing to treat fair,
On the dismal, woeful Mole of Marimolena.”

And other deep-sea chanteys,—­the one in which the pirate found the Lady in the C-a-a-bin and slivered off her head, or back to Red Renard, or further to his own campaign song, and furthest of all to the bad, bad young dog of a crow.  Then he got quite out of breath, and pausing for a moment to catch it, noted for the first time the extreme bitterness of the cold.  It stung the face like insects.  “Woof!” he said.  “And now for lost time.”

Again he stepped out, but with each step the snow became deeper, and presently he floundered in to his waist.  “Must be a ditch!” he said, turning a little to the right and exclaiming, “Thought so!” as the wading got shallower.  Whereupon he stepped into a deep hole and fell.  After plunging and plowing about, it was brought home to him that he had lost the path.  Even at that the difficulty remained one of hard walking alone, for he had been familiar with that country since childhood, and knew the precise direction in which it was necessary for him to locomote.  It was a pity that the only structure in the vicinity was an ancient and deserted house,—­it lay just off there,—­as he should have liked to have warmed himself by a good fire before going farther.  He remembered that there were a partly preserved stove in the deserted house, broken laths, and naily boards, and swathes of curious old wall-papers, layer upon layer, which, dampening and rotting from the wall, hung raggedly down.  He had once explored the house with Margaret, and it seemed almost wise to go to the place and make a fire.  But on account of the delay involved and the approach of darkness, he discarded the notion, and, a little impatient at being badly used by a neighborhood he knew so well, struggled on.

“Troubles,” he said, “what sort of a storm is this anyway?  Did you ever see anything quite like it round here?  Because I never did.  It must be like those things they have out West, when millions of poor little baa-sheeps and horses and cattles freeze to death.  I’d hate to be a horse out in this, but I wish I had one.  I—­”

If, as a child, you have ever slipped, though only an inch, while climbing over roofs, you will know that sudden, stabbing, sinking feeling that came to Aladdin and stopped the beating of his heart by the hairbreadth of a second.  He had been proceeding chin on breast, and head bent against the wind, or he would have seen it before, for it was a notable landmark in that part of the world, and showed him that he had been making way, not toward his destination, but toward the wilderness.