And then we all fell to again; and very soon we hauled
him out. Watch took charge of him at once, with an air of the noblest
patronage, lying on his frozen fleece, and licking all his face and
feet, to restore his warmth to him. Then fighting Tom jumped up at once,
and made a little butt at Watch, as if nothing had ever ailed him, and
then set off to a shallow place, and looked for something to nibble at.

Further in, and close under the bank, where they had huddled themselves
for warmth, we found all the rest of the poor sheep packed, as closely
as if they were in a great pie. It was strange to observe how their
vapour and breath, and the moisture exuding from their wool had scooped,
as it were, a coved room for them, lined with a ribbing of deep yellow
snow. Also the churned snow beneath their feet was as yellow as gamboge.
Two or three of the weaklier hoggets were dead, from want of air, and
from pressure; but more than three-score were as lively as ever; though
cramped and stiff for a little while.

'However shall us get 'em home?' John Fry asked in great dismay, when
we had cleared about a dozen of them; which we were forced to do very
carefully, so as not to fetch the roof down. 'No manner of maning to
draive 'un, drough all they girt driftnesses.'

'You see to this place, John,' I replied, as we leaned on our shovels
a moment, and the sheep came rubbing round us; 'let no more of them out
for the present; they are better where they be. Watch, here boy, keep
them!'

Watch came, with his little scut of a tail cocked as sharp as duty, and
I set him at the narrow mouth of the great snow antre. All the sheep
sidled away, and got closer, that the other sheep might be bitten first,
as the foolish things imagine; whereas no good sheep-dog even so much as
lips a sheep to turn it.

Then of the outer sheep (all now snowed and frizzled like a lawyer's
wig) I took the two finest and heaviest, and with one beneath my right
arm, and the other beneath my left, I went straight home to the upper
sheppey, and set them inside and fastened them. Sixty and six I took
home in that way, two at a time on each joumey; and the work grew harder
and harder each time, as the drifts of the snow were deepening. No other
man should meddle with them; I was resolved to try my strength against
the strength of the elements; and try it I did, ay, and proved it. A
certain fierce delight burned in me, as the struggle grew harder; but
rather would