There was at first no response, only a protesting shrug, and a disposition to avoid any direct refusal by moving away. Leacraft spoke again. “The snow packs easily; we can get there on snow-shoes in a short time. There can be no danger. These unfortunate people are imprisoned in the church, I think; there’s a woman there; the man needs help to get her out; he probably could break his way over here, but he can’t drag her with him, and he won’t leave her. It’s murder to turn our backs on them.”
Leacraft was alone, save for the presence of the second speaker. The rest had disappeared, and the thud of their mallets and the rattle of the sledges acquainted him with their distant operations.
“Meester, I’ll gie ye a haud. There’s snaw-shoes down the track in a tram; I’ll hae them here in a jiffy.” He vanished down the long cut.
Leacraft called after him: “Bring two bottles of whiskey. You can use my name for them at the hotel.”
While he waited for the man’s return, Leacraft outlined a possible avenue of approach to the imprisoned couple, if couple it was. He could indistinctly see—the day was waning—that on the west side of Hanover street, by reason of the north-westerly direction of the storm, the housetops had formed a partial protection to the street below, and that the heavy ridged hill of snow occupied the centre of the street, lurching over against the west. Up the short slope this partial shelter continued, but in George street, beyond, the storm drove scurrying blasts of wind that whirled the snow upward in fantastic pirouetting volleys, and, doubtless, with wicked intent, had piled the drifts up in insurmountable entrenchments against the doors of the buildings on that street. The prospect of progress there was discouraging. Still there would be ways; the renewed calls nerved him to desperation.
The volunteer returned with the snow-shoes, a pair for both of them, and an extra pair for the imprisoned man, and the bulging bulk of three bottles of whiskey. He explained the latter excess: “They gied me the thraw, and I had no heart to haud the ither back. Let well eneugh alone, I say.”
“Now, my brave friend, we must know each other’s name, though we shall not be separated, as we must be tied together. But men working in peril become close companions,” said Leacraft to the man.
“Weel, sir, it mak’s sma’ difference what name we go by, but, an’ you like it, just ca’ me Jim.”
Leacraft opened one of the bottles of whiskey, and handed it to his companion, who eagerly accepted the invitation, and took so hearty a draught that Leacraft felt some misgivings over his usefulness. The man explained: “Ut’s no dram habit I have, sir, but the cauld ha’ gone to mee bains, an’ the wee drap pits fire in my sperit. It’s bonny stuff. It’s nae mickle harm to keep the fires burning in a blast like this. Tak’ my advice and do the same yoursel’, sir.”
Leacraft was indeed not unwilling to follow this example, and thus reinforced, the two men plunged into the snow banks that with irregular surfaces of hills and valleys spread before them. They floundered desperately forward, finding that the snow-shoes were indispensable, and the precaution of being tied together most helpful. The calling voices, with intermittent pauses, were still heard, and both Leacraft and his companion exerted themselves to return the calls with reassurance. It was evident that they had, at least at times, been heard, for the distant shouts became timed to their own, and this indication of recognition served to strengthen and increase their efforts. The work was difficult, and with recurrent accesses of the storm’s fury, the snowy wreaths, detached from the cornices of the houses, or whirled from off the edges of the tumultuous drifts, blinded and overwhelmed them. Fortunately, the wind came in gusts, and it was this circumstance that permitted Leacraft first to hear the voices. Between the wintry assaults of the wind, in the pauses of its fury, they stumbled on, forcing their way under the shelter of the western houses, and, at the corner of George street, struck boldly out towards the monument, where Leacraft had discerned the inverted cone of snow. The cause of this formation was now apparent, and rendered their further progress more precarious. The wind surged down George street, and by a slight deflection in its course from the axis of the street itself, was thrown into a vertical motion at the corners of Hanover street, and became a cyclone, whose towering and fiercely moving walls were materialized to the eye in the successive shells of snow raised in oscillating spires above the tops of the houses, where it again was seized by the direct wind and sent in dusky masses skywards. The picture of George street at this point was appalling enough. The snow lay deeply piled in the street, forming a high central ridge, and crossing this obliquely were traverse drifts which had a slow motion down the street towards the Melvill memorial; these even at times coalesced, assuming the aspect of a big comber at sea, and advancing with similar menace. When these snow billows flowed into the depression about the statue, they filled it, and then the revolving winds, like a gigantic and invisible augur, excavated it again, tossing the snow out in spurts resembling the geyser-like bursts in front of a snow-plough. At such moments it would have been almost impossible to have crossed the spot, with the buffeting wind shaking with flagitious fury the folds of snow about the traveller and entombing him also in their rising sheets.