s icy darts. And dead would
those thirty assuredly have been, but for the timely aid of brave men,
themselves toil-worn to the verge of collapse, who, through the deep
drifts and the swirling snow, bore home the heavy, unconscious bodies,
to revive them with difficulty.

The storm began on the 24th of January, and though the snow lay but a
week, whole flocks were overwhelmed, in some instances buried fifty feet
deep. Countless numbers of sheep, driven into burns and lochs by the
pitiless strength of the wind, were never again seen, swept away into
the sea by the tremendous floods that followed the melting of the snow.
There is on Solway Sands a place called the Beds of Esk, where with
terrible persistency the tides cast up whatever may have been carried to
sea by the rivers which in this neighbourhood empty themselves into the
Firth. Ghastly was the burden here strewn when the floods now went down.
In those Beds lay the lifeless bodies of two men and of one woman; the
swollen carcasses of five-and-forty dogs, eighteen hundred and forty
sheep, nine black cattle, three horses, one hundred and eighty hares;
and of rabbits and small animals a multitude innumerable. Death held
high carnival in Eskdalemuir that January of 1794.

Hogg gives a vivid picture of his own adventures in this storm. He had
gone from home the previous day, tramping over the Ettrick hills many a
long mile to attend some friendly meeting of fellow-shepherds, leaving
his sheep in charge of his master. Arrived at his destination, and
rendered uneasy by the unwonted appearance of the sky, without waiting
for rest or for anything but a little food and drink, he turned and set
out straightway on his homeward journey. A tramp of thirty or forty
miles over the hills is ordinarily no great matter for a young and
active shepherd. But now snow was falling; already it lay to some
depth, making the footing toilsome and insecure. Moreover, a curious
yellow mist had spread over the hills, shrouding the hollows from sight;
darkness must be on him hours before he could hope to reach home, and
the night promised to be wild. But what would daunt an ordinary
pedestrian has no terrors for the Border shepherd, and Hogg safely
reached his home before bedtime, to learn, greatly to his dismay, that
his master, good easy man, had left the sheep that evening on an exposed
part of the hill. Not even the master's "Never mind them the nicht,
Jamie; they're safe eneuch, and I'll gi