The pace I was going in this headlong descent must have been very great, yet it seemed to me to occupy a marvellous space of time, long enough for the events of my whole previous life to pass in review before me, as I had often before heard that they did in moments of extreme peril. I never lost my consciousness, but had time to think much of those I should leave behind me, expecting every moment as I did to be dashed over the rocks at the bottom of the ravine; knew in fact that such must be my fate, unless I could stop myself by some means. Owing to the softness of the snow, I contrived to accomplish this by kicking my foot as deep into the snow as I could, and at the same time bending my knee with a smart muscular effort, so as to make a hook of my leg; this brought me to a stand still, but my position was anything but agreeable even then, hanging head downwards on a very steep part, and never knowing any moment but what I might start again. With much difficulty, however, I at length succeeded in getting myself the right way up, and then descended with great care to the bottom of the ravine, intending if possible to walk along the course of the stream in its hollow till it should lead me to the enclosed country. The ravine, however, was so choked up with snow, that to walk along the valley was utterly impossible. The drifts were many feet over my head, in several places they must have been at least twenty feet in depth; and having once got into them, I had the greatest difficulty, by scratching and struggling, to extricate myself from them again. It was now dark. I did not know into which of the ravines I had fallen, for at this part there is a complete network of them intersecting each other in every direction. The only way by which I had thought to escape was hopelessly blocked up, and I had to face the awful fact that I was lost among the hills, should have to spend the night there, and that, humanly speaking, it was almost impossible that I could survive it.
The instinct of self-preservation, however, is strong, even when a fearful death seems close at hand, and there were others for whose sake, even more than my own, I desired that night that my life might be spared, if such were God’s will. I knew that, under Providence, all depended on my own powers of endurance, and that the struggle for life must be a very severe one. The depth of the snow made walking a very exhausting effort. It was always up to my knees, more often up to my waist; but my only chance, as I was well aware, was to keep moving; and having extricated myself at last from the drifts in the ravine, I began to climb the opposite side of the hill, though I had not the least idea in which direction I ought to go. As I made my way upwards, I saw just in front of me what looked like a small shadow flitting about, for owing to the white ground it was never completely dark. I was much surprised at this, especially as when I came close to it, it disappeared into the snow, with the exception of one round dark spot, which remained motionless. I put my hand down upon this dark object to ascertain what it could possibly be, and found that I had got hold of a hare’s head! I saw many of these little animals in the course of the night. They made holes in the snow for shelter, and sat in them well protected by their warm coats, happier far than their human fellow-sufferer, who knew that for him there must be no rest that night if he would see the light of another day.
Having climbed the hill, I walked along its crest for some distance, till suddenly I again lost my footing, and shot down the hill, as far as I can judge, on the opposite side into another ravine. This was, if possible, a more fearful glissade than my previous one; it was a very precipitous place, and I was whirled round and round in my descent, sometimes head first, sometimes feet first, and again sideways, rolling over and over, till at last, by clutching at the gorse bushes, and digging my feet into the snow as before, I once more managed to check my wild career, and bring myself to a stand; but I had lost my hat and a pair of warm fur gloves, which I had on over a pair of old dogskins. The loss of these fur gloves proved very serious to me, as my hands soon began to get so numbed with the cold, that they were comparatively useless.
At the bottom of the ravine into which I had now fallen, I found myself again involved in snow drifts, and had still more difficulty than before in getting out of them. I had tumbled into a very soft one far over my head, and had to fight, and scratch, and burrow for a long time before I could extricate myself, and became more exhausted than at any other time during the night. I only ventured to take my brandy very sparingly, wishing to husband it as much as possible, and there was but a very tiny drop left. My hands, as I have said, were so numbed with cold as to be nearly useless. I had the greatest difficulty in holding the flask, or in eating snow for refreshment, and could hardly get my hands to my mouth for the masses of ice which had formed upon my whiskers, and which were gradually developed into a long crystal beard, hanging half way to my waist. Icicles likewise had formed about my eyes and eyebrows, which I frequently had to break off, and my hair had frozen into a solid block of ice. After the loss of my hat, my hair must, I suppose, have become filled with snow, while I was overhead in the drifts. Probably this was partially melted by the warmth of my head, and subsequently converted into ice by the intense frost. Large balls of ice also formed upon my cuffs, and underneath my knees, which encumbered me very much in walking, and I had continually to break them off. I tried to supply the place of my hat by tying my handkerchief over my head, but found that by no possible effort could I make a knot, and that I could only keep it on my head by holding the corners between my teeth. It was equally impossible to refasten my overcoat, only a thin tweed (for I had dressed lightly, in expectation of hard exercise), which had become unbuttoned in my last fall. It may seem absurd to mention it, but the cravings of hunger grew so keen, stimulated as they were by the cold and the great exertion, that it actually occurred to me whether I could eat one of my old dogskin gloves. I was, however, deterred from making the attempt, partly by the prospect of its toughness, and partly by the fear of greater injury to my hands from frost bite, if they were deprived of their last covering. My exhaustion was so great that I fell down every two or three steps, and the temptation to give in and lie down in the snow became almost irresistible, and had to be struggled against with every power of mind and body. I endeavoured to keep constantly before me the certain fact, that if sleep once overcame me I should never wake again in this life. The night seemed interminably long. Again and again I tried to calculate the time, but always came to the same conclusion, that many hours must elapse before the return of daylight. The wind had gone down, and the stillness became so oppressive, that I often spoke aloud for the sake of hearing my own voice, and to ascertain that the cold, which was intense, had not deprived me of the power of speech. The hares still sported and burrowed on the hill sides, but excepting these there were no signs of life whatever.
Never did shipwrecked mariner watch for the morning more anxiously than did I through that weary, endless night, for I knew that a glimpse of the distance in any one direction would enable me to steer my course homewards. Day dawned at last, but hope and patience were to be yet further tried, for a dense fog clung to the face of the hill, obscuring everything but the objects close at hand. Furthermore, I discovered that I was rapidly becoming snow blind. My eyes, which had been considerably injured already by the sharp sleet of the evening before, were further affected by the glare of the snow, and I was fast losing all distinctness of vision. I first learned the extent of this new calamity when endeavouring, with the earliest light, to look at my watch. It was a work of great difficulty to get it out of my pocket; and when this was done, I found that I could not tell the face from the back. The whole thing was hazy and indistinct, and I can only describe it as looking like an orange seen through a mist. Such sight as remained rapidly became all confusion as regarded the form, colour, and proportion of objects. Again and again I thought I saw before me trees and enclosures, but these, when I came up to them, invariably turned out to be only portions of gorse bushes projecting through the snow. My optical delusions as to colour were perhaps the most remarkable; the protruding rocks invariably appeared of a strange orange yellow, with black lines along them, producing a short of tortoise-shell effect. I took these mysterious appearances at first for dead animals, ponies or sheep, and touched them to try to ascertain the fact. My hands, however, were so utterly devoid of sensation, that they were of no more use than my eyes in identifying objects. I was therefore quite in the dark as to their nature, till experience proved them to be rocks with tufts of heather on them. Owing to my failing eyesight, my falls became very frequent, and several of them were from heights so great that it would scarcely be believed were I to attempt to describe them. I may, however, say, that they were such as perfectly to appal those who, a few days afterwards, visited the spots where they occurred, and saw the deep impressions in the snow where I had plunged into it from the rocks above. One fall especially I well remember. I had just crossed the ridge of a hill, and saw, as I imagined, close below me a pool covered with ice, which seemed free from snow. I thought I would walk across this, and, accordingly, made a slight jump from the rock on which I stood in order to reach it. In a moment, however, I discovered that, instead of on to a pool, I had jumped into empty space. I must have fallen on this occasion a considerable distance, but I was caught in a deep snow-drift, so that, although considerably shaken and bewildered for the moment by what had happened, I was not seriously hurt.
I have been enabled by various circumstances, and by the help of those who followed my tracks before the snow melted, to make out with tolerable accuracy the course of my wanderings. Those who tracked me say that, “If there was one part of the hill more difficult and dangerous than another, that is the line which Mr. Carr took.” When the morning light first dawned, I could see that I was walking along the side of a ravine of great depth, and more than usually perpendicular sides; it was so steep that I could not climb to the top of the ridge and get out of it, and the snow was in such a very loose, soft state, that I expected every moment it would give way beneath me, and I should be precipitated into the depths below. I had to walk with the greatest care to prevent this; and I believe that this was a very good thing for me, as it gave my mind complete occupation, and kept me from flagging. I could only go straight on, as I could not ascend, and was afraid to descend. My method of progression was more crawling than walking, as I had to drive my hands deep into the snow, and clutch at tufts of grass or heather, or any thing I could find beneath it, to hold on by. I must have gone forward in this way for an hour or two, when I found the ravine becoming less steep, and I heard the sound of running water very distinctly. Accordingly I thought I would descend and try once more whether I could walk down the stream, as this by its sound seemed a larger one, and I thought it might have cut a way through the drifts. I reached the bottom of the valley safely. It appears to have been the valley immediately above the Light Spout waterfall, and, trying to walk by the stream, I tumbled over the first upper fall. Hearing a noise of falling water, and seeing dimly rocks all round me, I found it would not do to go forward in this direction, so, having unconsciously gone to the very edge of the lower cascade, where I must in all probability have been killed had I fallen over, I turned sharply up the hill again, going over the rocks above, and coming down again by a very steep place. Round and round this waterfall I seemed to have climbed in every possible direction. A man who had tracked me, and with whom I visited the place a few weeks ago, said, “You seem to have had a deal o’ work to do here, Sir,” pointing to a small rocky space at the bottom of the fall. I had imagined, while thus going round and round as if on a tread mill, that I was walking straight forward down the stream, and I suppose my efforts to keep near the sound of the water misled me. Though perfectly familiar with this part of the Long Mynd, I was so blind at this time, and everything looked so strange, that I did not in the least recognise my position. Finding I did not get on very well, I determined now to try whether I could walk or crawl down the actual stream itself where it had hollowed its way underneath the drifts which overhung it, making a sort of low-arched tunnel, which I thought worth trying. I soon found, however, that this was quite impracticable, and that if I went on I should either be suffocated or hopelessly imbedded in the snow, and that then my utmost efforts would fail to extricate me. It also occurred to me somewhat painfully, that if I lost my life, as I thought I inevitably must do now, my body would not be found for days, or it might be weeks, if it were buried deep in the mountain of snow at the bottom of that valley; and I was anxious that what remained of me might be found soon, and that the dreadful suspense, which is worse than the most fearful certainty, might thus be spared to all those who cared about my fate.
I was not, however, quite beat yet; so, retracing my steps, I determined once more to leave the stream and make for the higher ground. But a new misfortune now befell me: I lost my boots. They were strong laced boots, without elastic sides, or any such weak points about them. I had observed before that one was getting loose, but was unable to do anything to it from the numbness of my hands; and after struggling out of a deep drift previous to reascending the hill, I found that I had left this boot behind. There was nothing for it but to go on without, and as my feet were perfectly numbed from the cold, and devoid of feeling, I did not experience any difficulty or pain on this account. That boot was afterwards found on a ledge of rock near the waterfall. I soon after lost the other one, or rather, I should say, it came off, and I could not get it on again, so I carried it in my hand some time, but lost it in one of my many severe falls. The fact of the loss of my boots has astonished all those who have heard of it, and I believe has excited more comment than any other part of my adventure. I have even heard of its being a matter of fierce dispute, on more than one occasion, whether laced boots could come off in this way. They do not seem to have become unlaced, as the laces were firmly knotted, but had burst in the middle, and the whole front of the boot had been stretched out of shape from the strain put upon it whilst laboriously dragging my feet out of deep drifts for so many hours together, which I can only describe as acting upon the boots like a steam-power boot-jack.
And so for hours I walked on in my stockings without inconvenience. Even when I trod upon gorse bushes, I did not feel it, as my feet had become as insensible as my hands. It had occurred to me now that I might be in the Carding Mill valley, and that I would steer my course on that supposition. It was fortunate that I did so, for I was beginning to think that I could not now hold out much longer, and was struggling in a part where the drifts were up nearly to my neck, when I heard what I had thought never to hear again—the blessed sound of human voices, children’s voices, talking and laughing, and apparently sliding not very far off. I called to them with all my might, but judge of my dismay when sudden and total silence took the place of the merry voices I had so lately heard! I shouted again and again, and said that I was lost, but there was no reply. It was a bitter disappointment, something like that of the sailor shipwrecked on a desert island, who sees a sail approaching and thinks that he is saved, when as he gazes the vessel shifts her course and disappears on the horizon, dashing his hopes to the ground. It appeared, as I learned afterwards, that these children saw me, though I could not see them, and ran away terrified at my unearthly aspect. Doubtless the head of a man protruding from a deep snow drift, crowned and bearded with ice like a ghastly emblem of winter, was a sight to cause a panic among children, and one cannot wonder that they ran off to communicate the news that “there was the bogie in the snow.” Happily, however, for the bogie, he had noticed the direction from which these voices came, and struggling forward again, I soon found myself sufficiently near to the Carding Mill to recognise the place, blind as I was. A little girl now ventured to approach me, as, true to the instincts of her nature, the idea dawned upon her that I was no goblin of the mountains, no disagreeable thing from a world beneath popped up through the snow, but a real fellow-creature in distress. I spoke to her and told her that I was the clergyman of Ratlinghope, and had been lost in the snow on the hill all night. As she did not answer at once, I suppose she was taking a careful observation of me, for after a few moments she said, “Why, you look like Mr. Carr of Wolstaston.” “I am Mr. Carr,” I replied; whereupon the boys, who had previously run away, and, as I imagine, taken refuge behind the girl, came forward and helped me on to the little hamlet, only a few yards distant, where some half dozen cottages are clustered together round the Carding Mill.
I was saved, at any rate, from immediate peril, though I fully expected that serious illness must follow from my violent exertions and long exposure. I was saved at all events from the death of lonely horror against which I had wrestled so many hours in mortal conflict, and scarcely knew how to believe that I was once more among my fellow-men, under a kindly, hospitable roof. God’s hand had led me thither. No wisdom or power of my own could have availed for my deliverance, when once my sight was so much gone. The Good Shepherd had literally, in very deed, led the blind by a way that he knew not to a refuge of safety and peace.
The good kind people at the Carding Mill, you may be sure, soon gathered round me in sympathising wonder, and I was quickly supplied with such comforts as they could give. I told them that I had had scarcely anything to eat since breakfast the day before (as I had been too much hurried to eat my luncheon before starting to Ratlinghope), and so tea and bread and butter were at once provided. The former was very grateful, but I could hardly eat the latter, as all feeling of hunger had left me. The good people were much shocked to find that I could not pick up a piece of bread and butter for myself, as I could neither feel it nor see it; I believe they thought my sight was hopelessly gone. I was, however, under no uneasiness myself on this score, as I was perfectly familiar with snow blindness, having seen cases of it in Switzerland, and knew that in all probability my eyes would get quite right again in a week’s time, as it turned out that they did. They also discovered that the middle finger of my right hand was terribly lacerated, and that the skin was completely stripped off the back of it. This I knew to be a much more serious affair, as the frost had evidently got fast hold of it, and I thought it very likely that I should lose it. This, however, seemed a very trifling matter to me then. Had it been my right arm I should have thought nothing of it, after so marvellous an escape. I was provided at the Carding Mill with a hat, boots, and dry stockings; and having rested about a quarter of an hour, set out again to Church Stretton, about a mile distant. A man from the cottage came with me, and gave me his arm, and with this assistance I accomplished the walk with comparative ease. I was so anxious to get home, that I almost felt as if I could have walked the whole way, though I do not suppose that I could really have done so, my home being rather more than five miles off. Arrived at the town, I sent my companion for medical assistance, and myself made my way to the Crown Inn. I could discern large objects sufficiently to find my way along the street, though all was blurred and indistinct, and the admission of light to my eyes was beginning to cause me extreme pain. I ordered a fly immediately to take me as far as possible on my road home. No vehicle of any description had been along the turnpike road that day, and it was very doubtful how far a fly could go, so it was arranged that we should be accompanied by a man on a saddle horse, that I might ride when the fly could go no further, as I knew that, under the most favourable circumstances, the last mile and a half of the road to Wolstaston would be inaccessible to wheels.