[] Dike (Scottice), a low fence of stone or turf.
They commenced to struggle on now in earnest--I might almost say for dear life's sake--for wilder and wilder blew the blizzard, increasing in force every minute, and thicker fell the snow. But I was wrong in saying it fell, for it was carried horizontally along on the wings of the wind. Not a flake would lie on the hills or bare slopes, but every dingle and dell and gully, and every rock-side facing westward, was filled and blocked.
Duncan held Flora firmly by the hand, for if she got out of sight in this choking drift, even for a few seconds, her fate would, in all probability, be that of sweet Lucy Gray--she might ne'er be seen alive again.
Frank and Conal were arm-in-arm, their heads well down as they struggled on and on.
"Let us keep well together, boys," cried Duncan, as he looked at his little compass once again. "Cheerily does it, as sailors say."
Now and then they stopped for breath when they came to a clump of pines.
Here the noise of the wind overhead was terrific. At its lightest it was precisely like the roar of a great waterfall. But ever and anon it would come on in furious squalls, that had in them all the force of a hurricane, which swept the tree-tops straight out to one side and bent their giant stems as if they had been but fishing-rods. At every gust such as this the flakes were broken into ice-dust, with a suffocating snow fog that, had they not buried their faces in their plaids, would have choked the party one and all.
Many of these pines were carried away by the board, snapped near to the ground, and hurled earthwards with the force of the blast.
Long before they reached the fence of turf, called in Scotland, as I have said, a dike, Flora was completely exhausted, and had to submit to be carried on Duncan's sturdy back.
Frank was but little better off, but he would not give in.