midnight
Stories of sports and incidents that he had not thought of for ten years or more occurred to him . How his father 's accounts of hunting expeditions and sleighing mishaps had set them all laughing when the family was cosily gathered together in one room on a winter evening . During that brisk , refreshing drive Frederick 's heart was rejuvenated . The happiest years of his boyhood were as vivid to him as yesterday -- thrilling , romantic rides by night , when the same sound of sleigh-bells scared the silence of sleeping forests and filled the boy 's soul with pictures of midnight attacks , romantic murders , and strange devilish phantoms . In the dazzling brilliance of the snowy fields , breathing in the pure , bracing air , mere existence became unspeakable bliss . Sitting there in that dainty sleigh Frederick was inclined to look on life as a pleasure drive . Suddenly he turned pale and had to hand the reins over to Peter Schmidt .