On Eskdale Moor, out of twenty thousand only forty-five were
left alive, and the shepherds everywhere built up huge semicircular
walls of the dead creatures, to afford shelter to the living, till the
gale should end. But the most remarkable narrative of a snowstorm which
I have ever seen was that written by James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd,
in record of one which took place January 24th, 1790.
James Hogg at this time belonged to a sort of literary society of young
shepherds, and had set out, the day previous, to walk twenty miles over
the hills to the place of meeting; but so formidable was the look of the
sky that he felt anxious for his sheep, and finally turned back again.
There was at that time only a slight fall of snow, in thin flakes which
seemed uncertain whether to go up or down; the hills were covered with
deep folds of frost-fog, and in the valleys the same fog seemed dark,
dense, and as it were crushed together. An old shepherd, predicting a
storm, bade him watch for a sudden opening through this fog, and expect
a wind from that quarter; yet when he saw such an opening suddenly form
at midnight, (having then reached his own home,) he thought it all a
delusion, as the weather had grown milder and a thaw seemed setting in.
He therefore went to bed, and felt no more anxiety for his sheep; yet
he lay awake in spite of himself, and at two o'clock he heard the
storm begin. It smote the house suddenly, like a great peal of
thunder,--something utterly unlike any storm he had ever before heard.
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