I set off from Rome on a journey to Russia, in the midst of winter, from
a just notion that frost and snow must of course mend the roads, which
every traveler had described as uncommonly bad through the northern
parts of Germany, Poland, Courland, and Livonia. I went on horseback, as
the most convenient manner of traveling: I was but lightly clothed, and
of this I felt the inconvenience the more I advanced northeast. What
must not a poor old man have suffered in that severe weather and
climate, whom I saw on a bleak common in Poland, lying on the road,
helpless, shivering and hardly having wherewithal to cover his
nakedness? I pitied the poor soul: though I felt the severity of the air
myself, I threw my mantle over him, and immediately I heard a voice from
the heavens blessing me for that piece of charity, saying, "You will be
rewarded, my son, for this in time."
I went on: night and darkness overtook me. No village was to be seen.
The country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the road.
Tired, I alighted and fastened my horse to something like a pointed
stump of a tree, which appeared above the snow; for the sake of safety I
placed my pistols under my arm, and lay down on the snow, where I slept
so soundly that I did not open my eyes till full daylight. It is not
easy to conceive my astonishment to find myself in the midst of a
village, lying in a churchyard; nor was my horse to be seen, but I heard
him soon after neigh somewhere above me. On looking upwards I beheld him
hanging by his bridle to the weathercock of the steeple. Matters were
now very plain to me: the village had been covered with snow over night;
a sudden change of weather had taken place; I had sunk down to the
churchyard whilst asleep, gently, and in the same proportion as the snow
had melted away; and what in the dark I had taken to be a stump of a
little tree appearing above the snow, to which I had tied my horse,
proved to have been the cross or weathercock of the steeple!
Without long consideration, I took one of my pistols, shot the bridle in
two, brought down the horse, and proceeded on my journey.