t, let no man
unused to the hill attempt that road. It was but the other year that a
lonely shepherd's wife near Tweedshaws, one stormy evening when snow
drove wildly across the moor, thought that she heard the cry of a human
voice come down the gale. Again and again, as she sat by her cosy fire
of glowing peat she imagined that some one called for help. Again and
again she rose, and opening the door, listened, but never, when she
stood by the open door waiting for the call to come again, was anything
to be heard but the noise of the storm and the rush of the wind,
anything to be seen but the driving snow. Long she listened, but the cry
came no more, and naturally she concluded that imagination had fooled
her. In the morning, not very many yards away from the door,
half-covered by its snowy winding-sheet, lay the stiff-frozen body of a
young man. There had been the breakdown of some vehicle down the road
the previous evening, and he had thought to make his way to Moffat on
foot. Of what do men think when they are lost in the snow? Of nothing,
probably, one may conclude; very likely, before it has dawned upon them
that there is danger, the mind, like the body, has become numbed with
the cold, and they probably only think of rest and sleep. To some spot
sheltered from the blast they may perhaps have stumbled, and they pause
to take breath. After the turmoil through which they have been
struggling, this sheltered spot seems a quiet little back-water, out of
the raging torrent, peaceful, even warm, by comparison. A little
rest--even, it may be, a few minutes' sleep--will revive them, and
afterwards they will push on, refreshed. All will be well; it is not far
to safety. And the snow falls quietly, ceaselessly, softly lapping them
in its gentle folds, and the roar of the wind comes now from very far
away--their last lullaby, heard vaguely through "death's twilight dim."
The desire to sleep, men say, is irresistible, and once yielded to,
sleep's twin brother, death, is very near at hand. There was found many
years ago in the Border hills the body of a man, who had taken off his
plaid, folded it carefully to make a pillow, on it had rested his head,
and so had passed to his long rest, contented enough, if one might judge
from the smile on his face.

But men do not always thus loose consciousness when buried in the snow.
There was the case of Mr. Alexander Laidlaw of Bowerhope, on St. Mary's
Loch, in the year 1842. One wild day