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“Belike we’ll be up to oor oxters in snaw, the morn, Wattie,” chirrupped one damsel, in the bicker of rustic wit and empty laughter that flew around.

“Weel, weel, lads! Time will show. Let them laugh that win,” said old Wattie.

That night there came a sudden shift of wind, and ere morning the country-side was smothered in snow. Twenty thousand sheep perished, and none but old Walter Blake came out of that storm free from loss.

The years 1709, 1740, and 1772 were all notable for unusually heavy falls of snow. In the latter year the country was snow-clad from mid-December till well on in April, and the loss of sheep was very great, chiefly because partial thaws, occurring at intervals, encouraged hill farmers to believe each time that the back of the winter was broken. Hence, they delayed too long in shifting their sheep to lower lands, and when the imperative necessity of removal at length became obvious, if life were to be saved, it was too late; from sheer weakness the poor animals were unable to travel.

Then came that terrible storm of 1794, a calamity that old men of our own day may yet remember to have heard talked about by eye-witnesses of the scenes they described. Nothing in nature ever wrought such havoc in the Border. Seventeen shepherds perished in the endeavour to rescue their flocks; no less than thirty others, overwhelmed by the intense cold, the fury of the gale, and the blinding, choking whirlwind of snow, dropped and lay unconscious, to all intents dead, sleeping the dreamless sleep of those whom King Frost slays with his 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 gie ye a hand in the morning,” could calm his anxiety. However, on looking out before going to bed, he was comforted to find the wind coming from the south, and apparently a thaw beginning. He might sleep in peace after all; things were going to turn out less bad than he had feared.