A Night in the Snow

A Night in the Snow, by Rev. E.
Donald Carr

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Title: A Night in the Snow or, A Struggle for Life
Author: Rev. E. Donald Carr

Release Date: January 4, 2007 [eBook #20287]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NIGHT IN
THE SNOW***

Transcribed from the eighth edition of James Nisbet & Co., Limited by
David Price and Margaret Price, email [email protected]

A NIGHT IN THE SNOW; OR, A Struggle for Life.
BY THE REV. E. DONALD CARR.
EIGHTH EDITION.
LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED, 21 BERNERS
STREET, W.
EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY LORIMER AND CHALMERS, 31 ST.
ANDREW SQUARE.

INTRODUCTION.
In publishing the following account of "A Night in the Snow," which
has already been given as a Lecture before the Society for the
Promotion of Religious and Useful Knowledge at Bridgnorth, I feel
that some apology is due.
My preservation through the night of the 29th of January last was
doubtless most wonderful, and my experience perhaps almost without
precedent, in this country at least; for, though many people have at
different times been lost in the snow, scarcely any one has passed
through the ordeal of such a day and night as that undergone by myself,
and lived to tell the tale. Still I should never have thought that the
matter was of sufficient importance to justify me in printing an account
of it, had I not discovered that my adventure has created a public
interest, for which I was totally unprepared. I have been so repeatedly
asked to write a detailed account of all the circumstances connected
with my wanderings on the Long Mynd in the snow during that night
and the following day, and to have it published, that I have at last
(though, I must confess, somewhat reluctantly) consented to do so, and
with that view have drawn up the following account.
In writing my story, I have been obliged to go into many very small

matters of detail, which may perhaps appear trivial; but it seemed to me
that the interest of a story of this kind, if there be any interest attached
to it, generally turns upon minor circumstances. I have also been
obliged to speak of myself in a very personal manner, but I did not see
how I could put the reader in possession of the geographical points of
the case, without describing the duties I had to perform, and the country
I had to traverse.
E. DONALD CARE.
WOLSTASTON RECTORY, April 17, 1865.

A NIGHT IN THE SNOW.
The mountains of South-West Shropshire are less known to the lovers
of fine scenery than their great beauty deserves, though they are
familiar to most geologists as the typical region of the lowest
fossil-bearing deposits. Of this group of hills the highest is the Long
Mynd, a mountain district of very remarkable character, and many
miles in extent. It is about ten miles long, and from three to four miles
in breadth. Its summit is a wide expanse of table land, the highest part
of which is nearly seventeen hundred feet above the level of the sea.
The whole of this unenclosed moorland is covered with gorse and
heather, making it extremely gay in the summer time; it is also
tolerably abundant in grouse and black game, and so fruitful in
bilberries, that from 400 to 500 pounds worth are said to have been
gathered on it in the course of a single season. On first hearing it, this
sounds an improbable statement; but any one who has been upon the
mountain in a good "whinberry season" as it is called, will readily
understand that this is no exaggeration. To the poor people for miles
around, the "whinberry picking" is the great event of the year. The
whole family betake themselves to the hill with the early morning,
carrying with them their provisions for the day; and not unfrequently a
kettle to prepare tea forms part of their load. I know no more
picturesque sight than that presented by the summit of the Long Mynd
towards four o'clock on an August afternoon, when numerous fires are

lit among the heather, and as many kettles steaming away on the top of
them, while noisy, chattering groups of women and children are
clustered round, glad to rest after a hard day's work. A family will pick
many quarts of bilberries in the day, and