A Night in the Snow | Page 9

course
on that supposition. It was fortunate that I did so, for I was beginning to
think that I could not now hold out much longer, and was struggling in
a part where the drifts were up nearly to my neck, when I heard what I
had thought never to hear again--the blessed sound of human voices,
children's voices, talking and laughing, and apparently sliding not very
far off. I called to them with all my might, but judge of my dismay
when sudden and total silence took the place of the merry voices I had
so lately heard! I shouted again and again, and said that I was lost, but
there was no reply. It was a bitter disappointment, something like that
of the sailor shipwrecked on a desert island, who sees a sail
approaching and thinks that he is saved, when as he gazes the vessel
shifts her course and disappears on the horizon, dashing his hopes to
the ground. It appeared, as I learned afterwards, that these children saw
me, though I could not see them, and ran away terrified at my unearthly
aspect. Doubtless the head of a man protruding from a deep snow drift,
crowned and bearded with ice like a ghastly emblem of winter, was a
sight to cause a panic among children, and one cannot wonder that they
ran off to communicate the news that "there was the bogie in the
snow." Happily, however, for the bogie, he had noticed the direction

from which these voices came, and struggling forward again, I soon
found myself sufficiently near to the Carding Mill to recognise the
place, blind as I was. A little girl now ventured to approach me, as, true
to the instincts of her nature, the idea dawned upon her that I was no
goblin of the mountains, no disagreeable thing from a world beneath
popped up through the snow, but a real fellow-creature in distress. I
spoke to her and told her that I was the clergyman of Ratlinghope, and
had been lost in the snow on the hill all night. As she did not answer at
once, I suppose she was taking a careful observation of me, for after a
few moments she said, "Why, you look like Mr. Carr of Wolstaston." "I
am Mr. Carr," I replied; whereupon the boys, who had previously run
away, and, as I imagine, taken refuge behind the girl, came forward and
helped me on to the little hamlet, only a few yards distant, where some
half dozen cottages are clustered together round the Carding Mill.
I was saved, at any rate, from immediate peril, though I fully expected
that serious illness must follow from my violent exertions and long
exposure. I was saved at all events from the death of lonely horror
against which I had wrestled so many hours in mortal conflict, and
scarcely knew how to believe that I was once more among my
fellow-men, under a kindly, hospitable roof. God's hand had led me
thither. No wisdom or power of my own could have availed for my
deliverance, when once my sight was so much gone. The Good
Shepherd had literally, in very deed, led the blind by a way that he
knew not to a refuge of safety and peace.
The good kind people at the Carding Mill, you may be sure, soon
gathered round me in sympathising wonder, and I was quickly supplied
with such comforts as they could give. I told them that I had had
scarcely anything to eat since breakfast the day before (as I had been
too much hurried to eat my luncheon before starting to Ratlinghope),
and so tea and bread and butter were at once provided. The former was
very grateful, but I could hardly eat the latter, as all feeling of hunger
had left me. The good people were much shocked to find that I could
not pick up a piece of bread and butter for myself, as I could neither
feel it nor see it; I believe they thought my sight was hopelessly gone. I
was, however, under no uneasiness myself on this score, as I was

perfectly familiar with snow blindness, having seen cases of it in
Switzerland, and knew that in all probability my eyes would get quite
right again in a week's time, as it turned out that they did. They also
discovered that the middle finger of my right hand was terribly
lacerated, and that the skin was completely stripped off the back of it.
This I knew to be a much more serious affair, as the frost had evidently
got fast hold of it, and I thought it very likely that I should lose it. This,
however, seemed a very trifling matter to me then. Had it been