The young man--boy, we might better say, for, he was only
nineteen--moved off in the very teeth of this storm, the small
granules of ice smiting him in the face and taking his breath. The
wind set itself against him with wide obstructing arms, and he
reeled, staggered and plunged forward or from side to side, in a
sort of blind desperation.
"Ugh!" he ejaculated, catching his breath and standing still as a
fierce blast struck him. Then, shaking himself like one trying to
cast aside an impediment, he moved forward with quicker steps, and
kept onward, for a distance of two or three blocks. Here, in
crossing a street, his foot struck against some obstruction which
the snow had concealed, and he fell with his face downward. It took
some time for him to struggle to his feet again, and then he seemed
to be in a state of complete bewilderment, for he started along one
street, going for a short distance, and then crossing back and going
in an opposite direction. He was in no condition to get right after
once going wrong. With every few steps he would stop and look up and
down the street and at the houses on each side vainly trying to make
out his locality.
"Police!" he cried two or three times; but the faint, alarmed call
reached no ear of nightly guardian. Then, with a shiver as the storm
swept down upon him more angrily, he started forward again, going he
knew not whither.
The cold benumbed him; the snow choked and blinded him; fear and
anxiety, so far as he was capable of feeling them, bewildered and
oppressed him.
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