Page:Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean, vol. 3 (1826).djvu/330

 tains, the wind rose, and swept along the edges of the woods with violence, full drops of rain fell at intervals, and the distant waters of the river were heard rushing along their rocky bed. Wolfgang was too much accustomed to the field not to know that these signs presaged a storm; but his ardour would not permit any idea of relinquishing the pursuit to enter his mind; besides, he fancied these signs were but preludes to the death of the boarwolf, and he gazed at it with exultation as, for the third time that day, it hurried through the dell where he and Hendrick had first discovered it. His spirits, now high, and free from fatigue, bore him along with a feeling of triumph, and though the wind shook the branches of the trees over his head, and sighed in the most threatening manner, he paid no attention to the impending tempest.

“At length, as he once more spurred along to the rocky level, the clouds burst above him, and a deluge of rain and hail surrounded him instantaneously; he seemed almost as if inclosed in a moving mass of water, and as the drops struck against the ground they broke into a fine mist, which rose up on the wind like a second shower, or as if the earth were heated and being