The young men
laughed the old one to scorn. A snowstorm! The auld man was daft! Why,
the air was like June; no sensible body would even so much as dream of
snow.
"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.
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