A Night in the Snow | Page 4

after a short service I started on my
homeward journey, having refused the invitations of my kind people to
stay the night amongst them, as I was anxious to get back to Wolstaston
in time for my six o'clock evening service, and I did not anticipate that
I should encounter any greater difficulties in my return home than I had

done in coming to Ratlinghope.
During the three quarters of an hour, however, that we had been in
church, the aspect of the weather had completely changed. A furious
gale had come on from E.S.E., which, as soon as I got on the open
moorland, I found was driving clouds of snow and icy sleet before it. It
was with considerable difficulty that I made my way up the western
ascent of the hill, as I had to walk in the teeth of this gale. The force of
the wind was most extraordinary. I have been in many furious gales,
but never in anything to compare with that, as it took me off my legs,
and blew me flat down upon the ground over and over again. The sleet
too was most painful, stinging one's face, and causing such injury to the
eyes, that it was impossible to lift up one's head. I contrived, however,
to fight my way through it, and at length reached the crest of the hill.
Though I could not see many yards in any direction, I knew at this time
exactly where I was, as I passed the carcase of a mountain pony which I
had previously noticed. The poor thing had no doubt been famished to
death, and was fast wasting to a skeleton. Numbers of these hardy little
animals have perished during the severe weather from hunger, having
been previously reduced to the lowest condition through lack of
pasturage during the dry season of 1864. One man, who owned
fourteen of them, has lost every one.
Leaving this solitary waymark, the half buried skeleton, by which I had
rested for a few minutes and taken a little of my brandy, I started again,
having first made a careful observation of the direction in which I
should go. After a further struggle across the level summit of the hill, I
reached my second landmark, a pool in a little hollow between the hills,
which is well known to the inhabitants of the district, and interesting to
naturalists, as the resort of curlews and other rare birds; here again I
took a short rest, and then started upon what I fondly dreamed would be
the last difficult stage of my journey.
My way from the pool lay first up a steep ascent for rather less than
half a mile to the top of the hill, and then across a level flat for some
three or four hundred yards, when a fir plantation would be reached at
the edge of the enclosed ground. Once within the friendly shelter of

those firs, I knew that the remainder of my walk, though still tedious
and fatiguing, would be comparatively easy. It pleased God, however,
that I should never reach them that night. Doubtless I had been too
confident in my own powers, and at the very time when I thought the
difficulties and dangers of my task were well nigh accomplished, I was
taught a lesson which I shall remember to the latest hour of my life. I
ascended the hill to the flat already spoken of, though it was a very
slow process, for owing to the depth of the drifts, which were now
increasing rapidly, and the force of the wind, I was compelled to crawl
a great part of the way. The storm now came on, if possible, with
increased fury. It was quite impossible to look up or see for a yard
around, and the snow came down so thick and fast that my servant,
who had come some distance up the lane from Wolstaston in hopes of
seeing something of me, describing it to me afterwards, said, "Sir, it
was just as if they were throwing it on to us out of buckets." I fought on
through it, however, expecting soon to come to the fir wood. On and on
I went, but not a glimpse of its friendly shelter could I see, the real fact
being that I had borne away a great deal too much to the right, almost at
right angles to my proper course. Having been blown down over and
over again, I had probably, in rising to my feet, altered my direction
unconsciously. The wind too, by which I had been trying to steer,
proved a treacherous compass; for, as I have been told, about this time
it went more round into the south. It was, moreover, becoming very
dark.