A Night in the Snow | Page 5

missed my way. This, however, gave me no great uneasiness, as I imagined that I had only gone a little too much to the south of the wood, and that I should soon reach an inhabited district at the bottom of it, known as Bullock's Moor, from which a somewhat circuitous route would bring me safely home. Under this impression I walked cheerfully on, but only for a few steps further. Suddenly my feet flew from under me, and I found myself shooting at a fearful pace down the side of one of the steep ravines which I had imagined lay far away to my right. I thought to check myself by putting my stick behind me, and bearing heavily upon it in the manner usual under such circumstances in Alpine travelling. Before, however, I could do so I came in contact with something which jerked it out of my hand and turned me round, so that I continued my tremendous glissade head downwards, lying on my back.
The pace I was going in this headlong descent must have been very great, yet it seemed to me to occupy a marvellous space of time, long enough for the events of my whole previous life to pass in review before me, as I had often before heard that they did in moments of extreme peril. I never lost my consciousness, but had time to think much of those I should leave behind me, expecting every moment as I did to be dashed over the rocks at the bottom of the ravine; knew in fact that such must be my fate, unless I could stop myself by some means. Owing to the softness of the snow, I contrived to accomplish this by kicking my foot as deep into the snow as I could, and at the same time bending my knee with a smart muscular effort, so as to make a hook of my leg; this brought me to a stand still, but my position was anything but agreeable even then, hanging head downwards on a very steep part, and never knowing any moment but what I might start again. With much difficulty, however, I at length succeeded in getting myself the right way up, and then descended with great care to the bottom of the ravine, intending if possible to walk along the course of the stream in its hollow till it should lead me to the enclosed country. The ravine, however, was so choked up with snow, that to walk along the valley was utterly impossible. The drifts were many feet over my head, in several places they must have been at least twenty feet in depth; and having once got into them, I had the greatest difficulty, by scratching and struggling, to extricate myself from them again. It was now dark. I did not know into which of the ravines I had fallen, for at this part there is a complete network of them intersecting each other in every direction. The only way by which I had thought to escape was hopelessly blocked up, and I had to face the awful fact that I was lost among the hills, should have to spend the night there, and that, humanly speaking, it was almost impossible that I could survive it.
The instinct of self-preservation, however, is strong, even when a fearful death seems close at hand, and there were others for whose sake, even more than my own, I desired that night that my life might be spared, if such were God's will. I knew that, under Providence, all depended on my own powers of endurance, and that the struggle for life must be a very severe one. The depth of the snow made walking a very exhausting effort. It was always up to my knees, more often up to my waist; but my only chance, as I was well aware, was to keep moving; and having extricated myself at last from the drifts in the ravine, I began to climb the opposite side of the hill, though I had not the least idea in which direction I ought to go. As I made my way upwards, I saw just in front of me what looked like a small shadow flitting about, for owing to the white ground it was never completely dark. I was much surprised at this, especially as when I came close to it, it disappeared into the snow, with the exception of one round dark spot, which remained motionless. I put my hand down upon this dark object to ascertain what it could possibly be, and found that I had got hold of a hare's head! I saw many of these little animals in the course of the night. They made holes in the snow for shelter, and